Asserting Land Rights: Rural Land Struggles in India and Brazil

• In Event: 029 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Comparative and Cross National Social Movement Research

Abstract

In recent decades there has been a pronounced shift in the strategy of land reform movements in the global South from armed revolutionary movements to land rights movements. Rather than seeking to topple the state and its laws through violence, land rights movements incorporate a rights discourse and mobilize mass-based nonviolent resistance to leverage constitutional laws in an attempt to compel the state to implement land reform. Through paired-comparison I examine two contemporary examples—Ekta Parishad in India and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil. I describe legal justifications for land reform and traditional forces that have inhibited land reform in India and Brazil. I then identify contextual factors that explain why a broadly comparable land rights strategy was developed by Ekta Parishad and the MST and explain key dynamics of the struggles. The analysis suggests that under certain structural conditions the state and its laws—when combined with sustained mass mobilization—can promote counter-hegemonic reforms and a more just distribution of land.

Author

• Kurt Schock, Rutgers University