Three books, two movements, one story

Abstract

These three books take different approaches to analysing the transformative potential of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil. Vergara-Camus' book also examines the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Carter solicited essays from numerous specialists and sees his book as contributing to existing efforts to overcome inequality. Meszaros emphasizes the influence of power relations on the law, determining that it takes an organized pressure group such as the MST to ensure that authorities implement policies that challenge the status quo. Vergara-Camus' grassroots approach, which involved periods of living with peasant families, concludes that the MST's strategies for building alternative, autonomous rural communities is more realistic - more universalistic - than that of the Zapatistas, whose military tactics tend to reinforce the group's isolation in the forests of Mexico's southernmost state. The review evaluates these arguments, the authors and their evidence from the perspective of a researcher experienced with the objects studied.