The Social Division of Labor in Rural Spaces in Brazil

Memory and History of the Expansion of Rural Social Movements and Disputes Over Hegemony

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of the course of the agrarian conflicts that existed in Brazil, from 1940 to 2015, which placed the political-ideological centrality of the forces existing in the Brazilian rural sphere. The study is divided into two issues. a) The first, Social division of labor (Mészáros 2004) in the rural area due to the expansion of big rural properties, transforming the land for work into a land for business, opening a sequence of conflicts with peasants. b) The second refers to the analysis of data collected and organized by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT in Portuguese), identifying agrarian conflicts in Brazil since 1985. The data offered until the year 2015 served as a meeting point to the history of Brazil, marked by its contradictions and memories, which at the same time, remaining alive, as if it is willing to continue to be an eternal present (Jameson 2002), through its structures of spoliation and conflict. Brazil entered the 21^st century with large debts to be paid related to the 19^th century. One of the biggest debits is the land issue. A question derived from these struggles, and not very simple to answer, is: does the number of families and areas involved in the conflicts change the national land structure in its productive and political aspects? Nowadays, these actions are organized by historical subjects, transforming individual demands into collective proposals in which social subjects perceive themselves as a political force and consolidate knowledge in a permanent educational process. Conflict data registered by the CPT (1985-2016) indicate that there was no change in popular demands for land property and use, and this may also indicate that there was no change in the Brazilian land structure