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Carter Miguel . Challenging Social Inequality: The Landless Rural Workers Movement and Agrarian Reform in Brazil . Raleigh-Durham, NC : Duke University Press , 2015. xxix+ 494 pp. ISBN 978-0-8223-5172-6 , $109.95 (cloth); 978-0-8223-5186-3, $31.95 (paper).
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Miguel Carter has brought together, in a single volume, a fascinating, comprehensive and timely collection that examines the Landless Rural Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra [MST]). The book explores the emergence and role of the MST and the ongoing struggle for agrarian reform within the context of large-scale socioeconomic inequality, a factor that has historically shaped social conflict in rural Brazil. Drawing on extensive multidisciplinary research by scholars in Europe, the United States, and Latin America, a main theme of the chapters focuses on the activities of Latin America's largest and most expressive social movement and the constraints of implementing a comprehensive project of agrarian reform as well as the socioeconomic and political impact of the MST on Brazilian society.
The book is organized into four sections. The first part examines the issue of agrarian reform and the emergence of rural social movements in a historical perspective, underscoring the role of the Catholic Church and popular mobilization in rural Brazil. The second part explores the emergence of the MST and its actions in different regions throughout Brazil. The third part focuses on the organization of rural land settlements and the process of building community among the landless, in a local and regional perspective. The fourth part investigates the political and social impact and implications of the MST in Brazilian society, which has, since its emergence, continuously contested prevailing notions of individual rural property ownership. The body of work presented by the authors makes an important contribution to the current literature, providing a critical view...