Internationalism as Political Praxis: Everyday Actions and Transnational Solidarity Building in the Brazilian Landless Rural Workers’ Movement

• Author: Dan Furukawa Marques,Claire Lagier
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221116813
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221116813

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 161–180

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221116813

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

161

Internationalism as Political Praxis

Everyday Actions and Transnational Solidarity Building in

the Brazilian Landless Rural Workers’ Movement

by

Dan Furukawa Marques and Claire Lagier

Contrarily to “nation-based” or “classic” internationalism, internationalism as polit-

ical praxis today shows a dynamic relationship between different scales of action that

influence each other, notably according to structural changes in the social, cultural, and

political-economic system. Furthermore, it differs from classic internationalism in focus-

ing on different political struggles and debates, mobilizing more horizontal methods of

organization, acknowledging a diversity of tactics, embracing a larger set of political prin-

ciples and struggles (going beyond class to address the environment, race, and gender),

and being more concerned with empowerment than with taking power. What is more,

although contemporary internationalism is still guided by “socialism,” the term is loosely

defined, allowing for ideological plurality based on political experimentation.

Ao contrário do internacionalismo baseado na nação ou “clássico”, o internacionalismo

como práxis política hoje mostra uma relação dinâmica entre diferentes escalas de ação que

se influenciam mutuamente, notadamente de acordo com as mudanças estruturais no

sistema social, cultural e político-econômico. Além disso, concentra-se em diferentes lutas

e debates políticos do internacionalismo clássico, mobiliza métodos mais horizontais de

organização, reconhece a diversidade de táticas, abraça um conjunto maior de princípios e

lutas políticas (indo além da classe para abordar o meio ambiente, raça e gênero), e está

mais preocupado com o empoderamento do que com a tomada de poder. Além disso, embora

o internacionalismo contemporâneo ainda seja guiado pelo “socialismo”, o termo é vaga-

mente definido, permitindo a pluralidade ideológica baseada na experimentação política.

Keywords: Internationalism, Social practices, Solidarity, Peasant movements, Brazil

The Movimento de Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Rural Workers’

Movement—MST) of Brazil is one of the best-known—and most-studied—rural

movements in the world. A vast literature exists on the “agrarian question”

(Bergamasco and Norder, 1996; Fernandes, 1996; 2000; Stédile, 1997), the socio-

economic configurations and impacts of rural settlements (Romeiro, Guanziroli,

and Leite, 1994; Leite etal., 2004; Wolford, 2003; 2010; Furukawa Marques, 2021),

the organizational form of rural encampments and occupations (Sigaud,

Dan Furukawa Marques is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Université

Laval, Québec City, and holds the Alban D’Amours Chair in the Sociology of Cooperation. Claire

Lagier is a senior consultant for the Prospex Institute. Her 2019 Ph.D. dissertation in environmen-

tal humanities at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich explored agroecological transitions

in the Brazilian Landless Movement.

1116813LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221116813Latin American PerspectivesFurukawa Marques and Lagier/Internationalism and the Landless Movement

research-article2022

162 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Ernandez, and Rosa, 2010; Rangel Loera, 2010), the creation and evolution of the

MST (Stédile and Fernandes, 2012; Fernandes, 2000; Branford and Rocha, 2002;

Wright and Wolford, 2003; Ondetti, 2008), its agroecological aspects (Meek, 2014;

Lagier, 2020), and its numerous educational and health projects (Tarlau, 2019).

However, although “internationalist solidarity” has always been a cornerstone

of the movement—which played an important role in the transnational alterglo-

balization network and is a key actor in La Via Campesina1 (see Agarwal, 2014;

Desmarais, 2007)—the international relations of the MST have received little

scholarly attention.

To address this gap, this article seeks to explore the Brazilian Landless

Movement’s international relations, focusing on the role of what the MST calls

“internationalist solidarity” or simply “internationalism” in relation to its

political principles and actions. We contrast the way in which internationalism

is expressed throughout the movement’s history and contemporary practices

with a more “classic” socio-historical view of the term based on a duality

between sovereign nation-states and the international realm and a top-down

ideology. We argue that contemporary forms of internationalism practiced by

social movements such as the MST and understood as political praxis—in the

Gramscian sense of the term, as “the place of political activity within an all-

encompassing systematic conception of the world” (Salamini, 2014: 12)2—does

not look at international struggles as strategically or analytically subordinate

to national ones, nor does it have a rigid ideological orientation or view the

worker as a privileged subject of transformation (Cairo and Bringel, 2010;

Bringel, 2015). Internationalism as political praxis frames these struggles as a

dynamic relationship between different scales of action that influence each

other, notably according to structural changes in the social, cultural, and polit-

ical-economic system. The idea of political praxis implies that social move-

ments look at the dynamic ways in which different scales of analysis and

intervention constitute each other and act accordingly. By “constitute each

other” we mean that “none is primary in the sense of being the irreducible

minimum” (Brodkin, 2000: 240).3 Furthermore, contemporary international-

ism4 focuses on different political struggles and debates from classic interna-

tionalism and uses distinct organizational, strategic, and tactical methods.

Indeed, it mobilizes more horizontal methods of organization, acknowledges

diversity of tactics and methods, embraces a larger set of political principles

and struggles (going beyond class to address the environment, race, and gen-

der), and is more concerned with empowerment than with taking power. What

is more, although contemporary internationalism is still guided by “socialism,”

the term is loosely defined, allowing for ideological plurality based on political

experimentation.

The article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses classic and con-

temporary internationalism and reviews the history of the MST’s international

relations and strategy for building internationalist solidarity as the movement

understands and practices it. Drawing on a socio-historical review of interna-

tionalism and on fieldwork, we aim to show that the international realm, rather

than being a mere strategy for national struggles, is part of a holistic view of the

world made up of multiple scales of analysis and political intervention that has

always been part of the way the MST thought of and built its political strategy.