Constructing legitimacy?

Lagier, Claire (2019): Constructing legitimacy?: agroecology within and beyond the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST). Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty for Languages and Literatures

Abstract

How are agroecological transitions and rural development alternatives experienced by farmers and rural activists? To explore this broad issue, Claire Lagier examines how agroecology’s legitimacy is constructed and contested within the base membership and transnational networks of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). The MST’s politics of land redistribution—as well as campaigning for sustainable rural livelihoods and education—have attracted significant attention worldwide, as have the food sovereignty alliance La Via Campesina’s agroecological training centres. However, few ethnographic studies have focused on the lived experiences of several generations of activists as they struggle to generate ecological transitions in the food system. Addressing this gap, Lagier’s study draws on intensive fieldwork carried out in Brazil in 2017–2018 alongside farmers living in a settlement affiliated with the MST, as well as young Latin American food sovereignty activists taking part in agroecological education. Claire Lagier defended her PhD thesis in Environmental Humanities at LMU Munich's Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in June 2019. Her doctoral work was funded by ENHANCE Marie-Curie ITN (2015-2018). She is currently based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

• Item Type: Theses (Dissertation, LMU Munich)
• Keywords: Brazilian Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), agroecology, legitimacy, critical pedagogy, food sovereignty, Agrarökologie, Ernährungssouveränität, Brasiliansche Bewegung der Landarbeiter ohne Boden (MST), Legitimität, Kritische Erziehungswissenschaft
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences; 300 Social sciences > 360 Social services, association; 600 Technology, Medicine; 600 Technology, Medicine > 630 Agriculture
• Faculties: Faculty for Languages and Literatures
• Language: English
• Date of oral examination: 7. June 2019
• 1. Referee: Mauch, Christof
• Signature of the printed copy: 0001/UMC 27583

Footnote

Open Publishing in the Humanities. - DOI Forschungsdaten: https://doi.org/10.5282/ubm/data.193