Paola Sartoretto | Voices from the margins | Sartoretto | Voices Paola Voices from the margins This study looks into communicative processes and media practices among members of a subaltern social movement. The aim is to gain an understanding 2015:32 of how these processes and practices contribute to symbolic cohesion in the movement, how they develop and are socialized into practices, and how these processes and practices help challenge hegemonic groups in society. These Voices from the margins questions are explored through a qualitative study, based on fieldwork and interviews, of a subaltern social movement. The empirical object of the study is People, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), which was founded in 1984 to promote agrarian reform and defend the rights of rural workers in Brazil. The results show that communicative processes are crucial to reinforcing values and symbologies associated with the rural worker identity. There is also a high level of Paola Sartoretto reflexivity about media practices and an understanding that they must serve the principles of the collective. As a consequence, the movement seeks to maintain control over media, routinely discussing and evaluating the adoption and use of media. The interviews show ambivalence towards the alleged dialogic and organisational potential of digital media and to the adaptability of these media to the MST’s organisational processes. ISBN 978-91-7063-650-9 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences ISSN 1403-8099 Media and Communication Studies DISSERTATION | Karlstad University Studies | 2015:32 DISSERTATION | Karlstad University Studies | 2015:32 Voices from the margins People, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil Paola Sartoretto DISSERTATION | Karlstad University Studies | 2015:32 Voices from the margins - People, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil Paola Sartoretto DISSERTATION Karlstad University Studies | 2015:32 urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-36358 ISSN 1403-8099 ISBN 978-91-7063-650-9 © The author Distribution: Karlstad University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Department of Geography, Media and Communication SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden +46 54 700 10 00 Print: Universitetstryckeriet, Karlstad 2015 WWW.KAU.SE Voices from the margins – people, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil Paola Sartoretto 2 Abstract This study looks into communicative processes and media practices among members of a subaltern social movement. The aim is to gain an understanding of how these processes and practices contribute to symbolic cohesion in the movement, how they develop and are socialized into practices, and how these processes and practices help challenge hegemonic groups in society. These questions are explored through a qualitative study, based on fieldwork and interviews, of a subaltern social movement. The empirical object of the study is the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), which was founded in 1984 to promote agrarian reform and defend the rights of rural workers in Brazil. At the macro-level, the discussion addresses social realities marked by the meta-processes of globalisation, neo-liberalisation, and mediatisation. Against this background, the experiences of MST militants and of the movement as a whole help us to understand how different communicative processes play a role in the ways people experience globalisation, neo-liberalisation, and mediatisation in their daily lives. Departing from an understanding of communication as a process that structures practices (mediated and non-mediated), this study questions the media-centric understanding of communication, arguing that media practices are created through appropriation processes. The results show that communicative processes are crucial to reinforcing values and symbologies associated with the rural worker identity. There is also a high level of reflexivity about media practices and an understanding that they must serve the principles of the collective. As a consequence, the movement seeks to maintain control over media, routinely discussing and evaluating the adoption and use of media. The interviews show ambivalence towards the alleged dialogic and organisational potential of digital media and to the adaptability of these media to the MST’s organisational processes. Through observation, it is possible to conclude that media have an instrumental function, as opposed to a structural function, in the processes of social transformation engendered by the MST. 3 4 Acknowledgements I cannot start but thanking the companheiras and companheiros from MST, without their collaboration this thesis would not have been written. I am grateful to them for allowing me into their homes and places of work, study and militancy, and for sharing their stories and experiences with me. I was at many times touched by their generosity, which I will never forget. What I have learned from all the MST militants I had contact with during my fieldwork is far greater than what can be written in a PhD thesis. I am also thankful to my supervisor André Jansson and my co- supervisor Jakob Svensson for their support and guidance. At Karlstad University I have been lucky enough to experience the collegiality and camaraderie from my PhD colleagues Flor Enghel, Johan Lindell, and Ilkin Merabov during the almost five years of my research education. I thank also Charu Uppal for her friendship, support, and endless supply of sweets, cakes, and Indian food. During my time as a doctoral candidate I have had the opportunity to present and discuss my on-going work at institutions in different countries, thanks to Carina Eriksson’s efficient work at Karlstad University International Office. Thanks are also due to the institutions that hosted me in various occasions, giving me the opportunity to present my research. At Federal University of Santa Maria, in Brazil, I thank Rosane Rosa for inviting me to teach in her courses and Veneza Mayora Ronsini for her comments and suggestions to my manuscript. At Bremen University – Zemki, in Germany, I thank Andreas Hepp for organising a research seminar where I could discuss my research proposal. At Cádiz University in Spain, I thank Víctor Marí Sáez for inviting me to lecture in his course, for his comments and suggestions to an early draft of this thesis, for his hospitality, and above all for putting up with my bad Spanish. My fieldwork in Brazil was possible thanks to grants from Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation, to which I am deeply grateful. The possibility of having input and critique from other scholars during the process of writing was crucial to the final result and I thank Mattias Ekman and Anna Roosvall for closely reading and discussing my manuscript in my thesis seminars at Karlstad University. The administrators at the Geography, Media, and Communication department, Emelia Johansson and Åsa Rangfeldt have been immensely helpful during my time as a PhD candidate. Thanks to their 5 administrative support I could focus on research and writing. John Ivan has been of great help with all technological matters. Finally, I cannot finish but expressing my love and gratitude for my parents Rui and Mara, my sisters Laura and Luísa, and my husband Nicklas. Words cannot describe how happy I am to have them in my life. Stockhom, June 2015 6 7 Table of Contents List of abbreviations .................................................................. 10 1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 11 People, media, land and struggle ........................................................ 11 Research questions ............................................................................. 16 Thesis outline ....................................................................................... 20 2 Mapping the empirical field ............................................................ 21 A (very) short history of land distribution in Brazil ................................ 22 Contemporary media landscape in Brazil: politics, conflicts, ownership structure, and emerging actors ............................................................ 23 The MST .............................................................................................. 25 Communication in the movement: a media biography ......................... 28 3 Mapping (and delimiting) the epistemological field ..................... 33 Social movements: theories and research ........................................... 33 Social movements and the media ........................................................ 37 Social movements and the struggle to communicate .......................... 45 Towards a non-Eurocentric outlook ..................................................... 50 Delimitation and contribution of the study ............................................ 54 4 Theoretical points of departure ..................................................... 56 A theoretical-conceptual map .............................................................. 56 Symbolic systems and narratives ........................................................ 60 Media practices and communicative processes in social movements . 67 Counter-hegemonic communicative action and participation .............. 79 5 Method ............................................................................................. 94 Methodological considerations: the intersection between ethnography and case study ....................................................................................