The self-organization of Youth Collectives in the MST: an analysis aboutan experience in Rio Bonito do Iguaçu-PR

Abstract

The repercussion of the youth’s self-organization for the formation of their political conscience and insertion in the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) is the central plot of this text and it is the outcome of a research that took place between 2018 and 2019. The investigation was based on an experience in the Acampamento Herdeiros da Terra de 1° de Maio, in the municipality of Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, Paraná. The methodological procedures adopted were done be interviewing the young people from the Youth Members Committee of that agrarian reform camp; conducting participant observation in their respective areas of activity; bibliographic and documentary research, and fi nally a survey of the work and training activities in which the camping youth had already participated up to the end of the research. The most evident actions were constituted by the subcategories of the analysis, being identifi ed as: training activities; agroecological production; self-sustainability of the Youth Members; cultural initiatives; struggles and demonstrations. Based on them, we describe and refl ect on such actions, seeking to identify how they contributed to the formation of young people and other subjects involved in the struggle for the land. The practices were constituted as manifestation forms on how these young people found political positioning ways and how it contributed to their class fi ght understanding and the relationship with other generations, especially the older ones. As a way of training themselves, the studies showed a self-organization of the young people from the Youth Members Committee, based on their consciousness and political action since their immersion place, confronting the posed contradictions.