Agroecological education on contested ground: Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the politics of knowledge

• Published in: Elementa (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 12; no. 1
• Main Authors: Meek, David, Fernandes, Bernardo Mançano, Coca, Estevan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 03-10-2024
• ISSN: 2325-1026; 2325-1026
• DOI: 10.1525/elementa.2024.00019

This article focuses on the contested interconnections between affective labor, agroecological education, and territory in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. We understand territory to be both embodied, material and immaterial: whereas material territory signifies the physical morphology of landscapes, immaterial territory surrounds the landscape of ideas; both forms of territory are experienced and structured by affective labor. Drawing upon insights from the political ecologies of education and emotion as well as Brazilian agrarian geography, we explore how the politics of knowledge structure affective labor, and reciprocal contestations over material and immaterial territory. This article focuses on one of the most highly publicized and contested agrarian spaces in contemporary Brazil: the Quilombo Campo Grande community. Quilombo Campo Grande is a social movement territory organized and occupied by Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), the largest agrarian reform movement in Latin America. This community has existed since 1996, and is comprised of 11 encampments. Until 2020, Quilombo Campo Grande contained a federally recognized school, known as the Escola Estadual Eduardo Galeano. As part of an August 2020 federally mandated eviction order, the communities’ school was destroyed by the state. Following extensive grassroots social mobilization, both domestically and internationally, the school was rebuilt, but transformed from a state school to a movement space, now known as the Regional Center for Agroecology. We analyze interviews with members of the MST’s state and national education sectors, and educators within the Regional Center for Agroecology. Our results highlight how material and immaterial resources are mobilized to structure affective labor. They also underscore the ongoing and evolving conflict between material and immaterial territory, emphasizing that in Brazil agrarian reform and agroecological knowledge are in direct physical and ideological conflict with the territorial vision of agribusiness.