'Late Mobilization': Transnational Peasant Networks and Grassroots Organizing in Brazil and South Africa

• Published in: Journal of agrarian change 2008-04, Vol.8 (2-3), p.290-314
• Main Authors: BALETTI, BRENDA, JOHNSON, TAMARA M, WOLFORD, WENDY
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activism; Activists; Brazil; Geography; Grass Roots; Grass roots movement; Mobilization; movement of landless peoples; movement of landless workers; Peasants; Political dissent; Political Systems; Rural Areas; Social Movements; South Africa; Studies; Success; transnational networks; Transnationalism
• ISSN: 1471-0358; 1471-0366
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0366.2008.00171.x

In this paper, we analyze the political dynamics of the contemporary 'transnational peasant network' through a comparison of two movements: the Brazilian Movimento Dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) and the South African Landless People's Movement (LPM). We argue that transnational visions of 'peasants' often obscure relations between or within rural movements. One tangible benefit of the transnational peasant network is the exchange of ideas, experiences and information, but this exchange does not happen in a vacuum, rather it happens in the historically-situated, power-laden context of an uneven world system. Organized in 1984, MST activists from Brazil helped to train, educate and inspire South African activists after the LPM formed in 2001, but key elements of the MST's success were inappropriate or unworkable in the South African context. Ultimately, the transfer of movement knowledge from the MST to the LPM may have worked against the long-term success of the latter.