SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND RURAL EDUCATION: BUILDING ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationships among Agrarian Question, Rural Social Movements, and Rural Education, based on experiences of organization, labor, resistance, and territorial construction in the Andalucia Settlement, located in Nioaque, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Using a qualitative approach, the research was conducted through a literature review and field research, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, oral narratives, field notes, and audio recordings. The results show that the settlement’s trajectory was shaped by encampments, land occupations, evictions, mobilizations, and practices of collective organization, constituting processes of political and social formation. Following the conquest of the land, families developed strategies involving production, self-consumption, commercialization, cooperation, and associative participation, articulated with access to public policies and the conditions required to remain in the territory. In the educational sphere, the experience of the “canvas school,” the Edson Borck Rocha Municipal School, and subsequent educational practices demonstrate the central role of education in the formation of rural subjects. It is concluded that Rural Education, articulated with collective organization and territorial knowledge, contributes to strengthening resistance, autonomy, and the permanence of families in rural areas.