Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement Transformed Brazilian Education

The Global Labour Research Centre (GLRC) and the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) are pleased to present:
Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement Transformed Brazilian Education
with
Dr. Rebecca Tarlau, Assistant Professor of Education and Labour and Employment Relations, Pennsylvania State University
Discussant: TBD
Wednesday, January 22nd
Kaneff Tower – room 626, York University
1:00pm-2:30pm
Over the past 35 years the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America, has become famous globally for its success in occupying land, winning land rights, and developing alternative economic enterprises for over a million landless workers. The movement has also linked education reform to its vision for agrarian reform by developing pedagogical practices for schools that foster activism, direct democracy, and collective forms of work. In Occupying Schools, Occupying Land, Rebecca Tarlau explores how MST activists have pressured municipalities, states, and the federal government to implement their educational program in public schools and universities, affecting hundreds of thousands of students. Contrary to the belief that movements cannot engage the state without demobilizing, Tarlau shows how educational institutions can help movements recruit new activists, diversify their membership, increase technical knowledge, and garner political power.
Rebecca Tarlau is an Assistant Professor of Education and Labor and Employment Relations at the Pennsylvania State University, affiliated with the Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Program, the Comparative and International Education program, and the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. She has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley (2014) and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University (2015-2017). Her ethnographic research agenda has three broad areas of focus: (1) Theories of the state and state-society relations; (2) Social movements, critical pedagogy, and learning; (3) Latin American education and development.
Facebookevent page: https://www.facebook.com/events/720711928694685/
For more information: https://glrc.apps01.yorku.ca/event/occupying-schools-occupying-land/
All are welcome.
TheGlobal Labour Speaker Seriesis organized by the Global Labour Research Centre at York University and is co-sponsored by the School of Social Work, Faculty of Education, Department of Equity Studies, Department of Anthropology, Department of Sociology, Department of Geography, Social and Political Thought Program, Department of Philosophy, Department of History, Master of Public Policy, Administration and Law program, Department of Politics, School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, Department of Social Science, School of Human Resource Management.