Access to land is one of the key issues for developing countries - and Brazil has one of the most inequitable land distributions in the world, with vast tracts of land held by often absentee landowners. Meanwhile thousands of peasants live in marginal lands in cities and rural areas. The Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST) has proved a huge success with the disenfranchised rural and urban poor in Brazil - becoming one of the largest social movements in the world. Cutting the Wire is the first account in English of the origins, history and current challenges faced by Brazil's poor majority. The authors have traveled the vast expanse of the country to record the words and actions of hundreds of activists who have taken their lives into their own hands. Cutting the Wire is how the MST describes the act of occupying the land, the cornerstone of their movement. It is the baptism of fire for the militant, an essential part of their identity and it plays a key role in the mistica, the moment of collective ritual that kicks off all MST events. Cutting the Wire is the story of the MST told in their own words, in vivid first-hand accounts of a continuing struggle.

Jan Rocha
Jan Rocha is a freelance reporter and wriiter and has worked for the BBC and The Guardian

Sue Branford
Sue Branford reports from Latin America for the BBC and The Guardian.

Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America

Sem Reforma Agrária, Não Há Democracia: Deepening Democracy and the Struggle for Agrarian Reform in Brazil

Wolford, Wendy

2006

https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983244_7 [Citations: 0]

This Land Is Ours Now

Moral Economies of Sugarcane and Social Mobilization

2010

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Globalisations, social movement unionism and new internationalisms: the role of strategic learning in the transformation of the Municipal Workers Union of EMCALI1

Novelli *, Mario

Globalisation, Societies and Education, Vol. 2 (2004), Iss. 2 P.161

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This Land Is Ours Now

Notes

2010

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This Land Is Ours Now

The MST's Imagined Community and Agrarian Populism

2010

https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822391074-003 [Citations: 0]

This Land Is Ours Now

Conclusion

2010

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This Land Is Ours Now

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This Land Is Ours Now

The Making of a Movement in Southern Brazil

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This Land Is Ours Now

Going Bananas

2010

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This Land Is Ours Now

Mobilization within Movements

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