Reframing the public in public education: the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and adult education in Brazil

Education for rural Brazilians has historically been dominated by two imperatives: human capital and political patronage. For the last four decades, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) have maintained a struggle to democratise public education and democracy itself. In this article, I make a situated analysis of the educational politics of the MST for adult education. I focus on the time period between 1988 and 2002 to examine the ways in which the MST i) resisted neoliberal literacy initiatives, and ii) pressured the state to recognise and support their radical adult education philosophy and practice. I argue that MST educational politics embody possibilities for the democratisation of knowledge as well as democracy itself.