Parcelando sonhos: questão agrária brasileira, MST e consciência privatista

Abstract

The present thesis arises with the objective of analyzing the process of conscience constitution in an agrarian reform settlement of the Rural Workers Landless Movement (MST), in the Minas Gerais forest zone. It also has the following specific objectives: 1. investigate the life stories of the settlers until their arrival in the movement; 2. analyze the role of the social movement in the constitution of conscience; 3. Understand which living conditions enhance or inhibit the organization in a social movement and the development of conscience; and 4. present the concept of privatist conscience. To this end, it is also proposed to analyze the imbrication between the categories conscience and private property as ideal expressions of the real movement, in this case, of the production and reproduction of life in such a reality. The work is divided into three initial theoretical chapters that deal with the agrarian question and private property in Brazil; social movements and Brazilian reality; and the process of consciousness and the attempt to define the concept coined here as privatist conscience. The methodological course includes a period of participant observation and seven in-depth interviews, based on the life history, with residents of the Dénis Gonçalves settlement. The chapter devoted to results and discussions was divided into three interpretative axes. It can be concluded that the forms of consciousness in the capitalist mode of production are shaped by the guiding principle of this mode of production, private property, being, thus, privatist conscience. The agrarian reform model of the Brazilian State still seems to contribute to the perpetuation of the privatist conscience. Breaking with the privatist conscience is, therefore, the greatest difficulty of the MST - and of our society. Some of the possible strategies, which are actions advocated by the MST, include the establishment of cooperative relationships and modification of work and production relationships with a focus on collective work. Such changes, allied to training, would lead to organicity and a new awareness. Moreover, overcoming private property must be part of this horizon, as well as strengthening common property and the use value of housing. Within the ambit of the bourgeois state, there is still a need for the Constitution to establish severe limits to the right to property.