Movimentos sociais : a longa viagem para o mesmo lugar

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2004

RESUMO

By restructuring the social processes which gave origin to the ?Canudos? neighbourhood and the ?Nova Conquista? settlements, both located in the municipality of ?São Luis? and ?Açailândia? in the State of ?Maranhão?, Brazil, this study intends to characterise important aspects of the composition of the social structure, and nature of social movements. United by the same condition of social exclusion, homeless and landless people represent sectors of the population, which organized itself in the settlement as a social movement that mobilised itself in order to achieve their integration into society. While denouncing the condition o inequality, on which Brazilian society is built and organised, they expand the frontiers of conflict and transform their social claims for a home and a land, into issues of a social and political nature. In the expansion of public space lies, even if not clearly expressed, the need to build a new capacity of social relations as a sine-qua-non condition of their integration. By challenging the constituted social order, represented by the State, which by creating settlements, rearranges the public spaces, and places the social movements and their demands in the sphere of juridical and administrative order. Seen from the standpoint of social organisation, the settlements become physical and social spaces characterises by ambiguity. In fact, homeless and landless people find themselves caught between the desire to recapture the old way of life, which is no longer viable, and the need to be integrated in the new order ? to be resocialized ? in order to achieve their social rank as settlers. The integration, however, allows a reiterated disintegration. Consequently, the bases of the social movements are gradually expropriated of their old forms of life and integrated in a new physical and social space, which, being constituted in accordance with the official juridical order, recreates, on other levels, the old forms of exclusion. In this process, the form and the character of social exclusion are redefined. In this way a process of exclusion is created. Analysed from the perspective of dominant social relations, the settlement is functional to the established order: it restricts the frontiers of social conflict and the political process and pre-empts the areas of tension; it integrates social spaces and groups, even if in an unequal and subordinate fashion, according to the logic of capitalistic expansion. Henceforth, the social and political character of the issues, raised by the bases of the social movements in the settlements, are redefined by politics governing settlements. Within the settlements the process of integration acquires a peculiar character monitored by the competitive nature of the market. The study aims at identifying the metamorphosis of these social forms

ASSUNTO(S)

assentamentos rurais conflito social inclusão social movimentos sociais urbanos justiça social movimentos sociais rurais socialização

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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