Landless childhood on the move in the struggle for school, land and dignity

Abstract

In the consolidation of the educational-political project of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the “Landless Childhood” has become one of the pillars of political subjectivity of encamped and settled children, resulting from a permanent process of political debate, study and theoretical deepening of the meaning of landless childhood as part the political praxis of the MST. In the present paper we present some reflections of the process of consolidation of the Landless Childhood in the MST and the role played by landless children (“Sem Terrinha”) in the historic struggle for school, land and dignity that permeates peasant resistance not only in Brazil, but in all of Latin America. We have organized the paper in four sections: first, we present the essence of the MST’s educational project in breaking down the enclosure of knowledge. Then we examine the Landless Childhood approach and the education of the landless children. In the third section, we present the educational-pedagogical experience of day-care centers and their role in the political subjectivity of the landless children. We conclude our reflection by highlighting the advances, the challenges and the banners of struggle that drive the political praxis of the Landless in the perspective of the Landless Childhood, as part of the educational-political praxis of the MST. The article is a documentary research result, with the analysis of documents produced by the MST Education Sector and which structure the conception of Landless Childhood and the philosophical and pedagogical guidelines of its educational proposal. We also conducted field research in settlement areas in the Sertões de Crateús, Ceará micro-region.