The conditions for building popular hegemony: Paulo Freire’s ‘inédito viável’ and the experience of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)

ABSTRACT

Paulo Freire’s concept of ‘inédito viável’ or untested feasibility, refers to the exploration of possibilities to transcend limiting situations and transform realities. In this paper, we examine how this idea is related to the counter-hegemonic pedagogical proposal of popular education by the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), an organisation founded by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil. We argue that the ENFF is not just a set of techniques and methodologies but a formative process that runs through the concrete reality of the subjects involved in the struggle for societal change. We conclude by proposing that the ‘inédito viável’ that constitutes the ENFF gains meaning from a broad, collective, and dynamic vision of concrete utopia involving a clear and mobilising orientation towards the future, a strong sense of agency, reflection, experimentation, and praxis.

KEYWORDS:

• Paulo Freire
• education
• utopia
• inédito viável
• Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)
• Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF)

Introduction

This article is, above all, an invitation to reflect together on the ‘possible dreams’, creatively named by Paulo Freire as ‘inédito viável’ (untested feasibility): it is a ‘word-action’, a term that expresses both the theoretical and practical exercise of the potential to transcend ‘limit-situations’ and transform realities through the interweaving of critical reflection and revolutionary action. We are interested in imagining new concrete possibilities for emancipatory education, as well as instigating and engaging new people and collectives in the exercise of ‘concrete utopias’. We aim to do this without distancing ourselves from: (i) historical and current challenges, or (ii) the adverse conditions and the contradictions of the structures, institutions, and social relations which limit the concreteness of counter-hegemonic projects, as in the case we discuss in this article: the revolutionary pedagogical proposal of popular education of the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF). We highlight that popular education is one of the pedagogical foundations that constitute the daily work of the ENFF. We understand this not only as a set of techniques and methodologies but also as the way in which the formative process permeates the concrete reality of the subjects involved in the struggle for conjunctural and structural changes in a society immersed in the capitalist mode of production.

Paulo Freire developed his theory of ‘untested feasibility’ from his intellectual and personal experience which arose in social contexts of domination and dependence, and which were characterised by different forms of injustice, authoritarianism and the marginalisation of social groups. He claimed that changing such realities required a political consciousness-raising process. This process was constituted in a dialectic encompassing the objectification of the reality in which the oppressed are inserted combined with the subjectification that inserts the oppressed as subject-agents in collective action which is aimed at transforming reality. This is where education and revolutionary pedagogy play a fundamental contributory role. As McLaren (2001, 43–44) argues, in revolutionary pedagogy subjects recognise themselves in and are subject to the world, allowing for epistemological resolution and mobilisation for transforming world realities. Freire proposed that this happened in two ways: first, by promoting an understanding of the historical and current situation of individuals in relation to the world so that they can elaborate alternative visions of realities and mobilise utopias; and second, by contributing to the recognition and understanding of the ‘limit-situations’ that prevent the ‘untested feasibility’ from becoming concrete, and by intellectually empowering individuals and communities to become confident and sufficiently strengthened for them to transform their longings into struggles, actions and practices that can bring about new realities.

This article examines how the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) embodies Paulo Freire’s vision of social transformation by exploring social, cultural, political, ethical, affective, cognitive, epistemological, and ontological issues related to Freire’s utopian view and the practice of emancipatory education. We seek to understand how the Freirean perspective is perceived by Brazilian working-class groups and the circumstances that led to the emergence and consolidation of ENFF. In the current extremely challenging global context, we argue that mobilising utopias is essential, and we offer reflections to encourage the exercise of subversive, emancipatory, and concrete utopias like that of ENFF, to change the realities of oppressed social groups.

Paulo Freire’s ‘inédito viável’ (untested feasibility)

The first time Paulo Freire used the word-concept ‘inédito viável’ was in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1987) in a discussion about the programmatic content needed to enable education to become a practice of freedom.¹ Freire enriched this idea of a concrete utopia throughout his writings, elucidating the meanings underlying the construction of this concept (Paro, Ventura, and Kurokawa e Silva 2020). Years later, Ana Maria Araújo Freire organised these scattered writings into an explanatory note in the book Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 2013, 190–192), and then expanded her interpretation of this Freirean concept in the Paulo Freire Encyclopedia (Osowski 2010). The expression ‘inédito viável’, which was created by Freire, contained an innovative proposal which combined elucidation of the idea of a utopia and how it could be realised through a revolutionary pedagogical educational process. Freire advocated for the simultaneous promotion of educational and political action so that a collective process of investigation and learning would lead subjects to become conscious of their reality; a reality constituted by the ‘thematic universe’ (aspects related to the context) and a ‘set of generating themes’ (the trigger mechanisms) of that reality. It is worth noting that Freire developed his ideas based on the analysis and experience of those living in contexts of profound inequality and social injustice, taking a strong stand in favour of the most marginalised and oppressed social groups. In this way, Freire’s educational proposal is essentially counter-hegemonic, aiming to break historical ties of domination to emancipate the oppressed and define new pathways to freedom.

Concept-words that explain the ‘inédito viável’²

For Freire, unlike the animal that simply lives, to be human is also to exist historically and to have the power to intervene, act, evaluate, transform and continuously recreate realities.

It was the possibility to go beyond the determining factors and overcome them that made us conditioned beings. And we can only go beyond the determining factors, which transform them into conditioning factors, if we become aware of them and their power – even if this is not enough. It would not be possible to speak of freedom without the consciousness of the determinism that thus becomes conditioning (Freire 2000, 55).

As Freire argued in many of his works, because we are inconclusive beings naturally oriented to ‘becoming more’, and because we are ‘conscious beings’, we live a ‘dialectical relationship’ between ‘conditioning and freedom’ in relation to a given situation or context (Freire 1987, 57). If, on the one hand, ‘freedom’ is an active and revolutionary human state aimed at the transformation of a reality, ‘conditioning’ is, on the other hand, characterised by a culture of silence, passivity, inertia and acceptance. In this sense, ‘ … it would be a contradiction if, being inconclusive and aware of their inconclusiveness, the historical human being did not become a being that is always searching’ (Freire 2000, 55), limiting themselves to the conditioned state. Freire then reflects on what positions us and makes us move between those two conditions or states. He uses the expression ‘situações limites’ (limit-situations) to characterise the barriers that are politically imposed for the maintenance of the conditioned state and as obstacles to the liberation of oppressed subjects, who ‘ … perceive [the limit-situations] as an obstacle they cannot overcome, or as something they do not want to overcome, or as something they know exists and needs to be broken and then strive to overcome it’ (Freire 2013, 191)

In contexts of domination, ‘limit-situations’ are drivers of fatalism, through establishing a limited and conditioned way in which individuals see and experience the world (Osowski 2010, 457). Under these conditions, individuals accept and submit to events, turning themselves into inert subjects, immersed in ‘existential fatigue’ and ‘historical anaesthesia’ of that given reality (Freire 2013, 128). Freire explains that this is ‘a fatigue that is not physical, but spiritual, that leaves the people taken by it empty of spirit, of hope and taken, above all, from the fear of adventure and risk’ (116).

In this case, Freire argued that the perception of these sociocultural barriers could be overcome through an emancipatory educational process capable of transforming the ‘limit-situations’ into ‘concrete and historical dimensions of a given reality’, named by him as ‘percebidos-destacados’ (perceived detached). ‘When something is ‘perceived’ and ‘detached’ from everyday life […] it cannot and should not remain as such; it, therefore, becomes a theme-problem that must be faced, must be discussed and overcome’ (Freire 2013, 191). From the recognition and understanding of such dimensions, overcoming them becomes desirable, credible and possible through ‘pedagogical mediations’ (Adams 2010, 316) and the so-called ‘limit-acts’ or ‘transformative responses’.

[Limit-acts] are directed towards overcoming and negating the situation. Instead of implying docile and passive acceptance […] limited actions imply a decisive attitude towards the world, from which the individual ‘separates’ themself, and, in objectifying the world, transforms it through their action (Freire 1987, 58).

In this way, the educator expresses conviction and faith in an educational process capable of promoting a new and critical perception of the reality or context of oppression, being able to mobilise subjects for its transformation. Freire argues that:

It is not the ‘limit-situations’ in themselves that generate a climate of hopelessness, but the perception that people have of them at a given historical moment, as a brake on them, as something they cannot overcome. The moment their critical perception is established, through the action itself, an environment of hope and confidence develops, which leads [people] to commit themselves to overcome the ‘limit-situations’ (Freire 1987, 58).

The ‘untested feasibility’ is then presented by Freire as the ‘frontier between being and being-more’ (Freire 2013, 191), a new field of possibilities to be collectively invented and explored; a terrain that is situated beyond the ‘limit-situations’ that have been established, perceived and paradigmatically paralysing for the oppressed. It is, therefore, from the educational process of conscientisation that the individuals;

… clearly and critically perceive in the ‘limit-situations’ that something is ‘perceived detached’, [and] feel mobilised to act on the ‘untested feasibility’, feel duty-bound to break through the barrier of ‘limit-situations’ to resolve, through action with reflection, these obstacles to the freedom of the oppressed, to cross the frontier between being and being more […] (Freire 2010b, 281).

According to Nita Freire (2010b, 280), Freire coined the term ‘inédito viável’ by integrating ideas from André Nicolai’s ‘unperceived practicable solutions’, Lucien Goldman’s ‘possible consciousness’, and Álvaro Vieira Pinto’s concept of limit-situations, which he redefined from being anchored in a pessimistic to a more optimistic view, as the real frontier where all possibilities begin. Enriched by these influences, Freire characterises his ‘inédito viável’ as a dimension of ‘unnoticed practicable solutions’, those that can only be visualised from a ‘possible consciousness’, therefore distinct from ‘perceived practicable solutions’ or ‘effectively realised solutions’ that are configured within the dimension of ‘real consciousness’ (Freire 1987).

The ‘untested feasibility’ carries the faith, hope and desire of Paulo Freire in the ability of the individuals (the oppressed) to become aware, understand, and change, the reality that imprisons them in contexts of social injustice. More than a feeling, an act of cognition, or a premonition aimed to encourage militancy (Lopes and Aranha 2017), hope and other human sensations and feelings that pervade the ‘untested feasibility’ become the mobilising foundation for the realisation of an emancipatory education project put forward by Freire. In this sense, Nita Freire (Freire 2010b, 280) identified a significant affective, cognitive, political, ethical, epistemological and ontological load in this word-concept – a term that involves engagement in projects and acts of human possibility. It is a word-action loaded with beliefs, values, dreams, desires, aspirations, fears, anxieties, will, the possibility of knowing, vulnerability and human greatness. The ‘untested feasibility’ should not be thought of in a static way (McLaren 2001), or indeed as a specific and defined place, reality or moment, such as a ‘realm of the definitive’ or a ‘nirvana of certainty’ (Freire 2010b, 281). On the contrary, it is dynamic, always in motion, transforming and promoting new dreams and possibilities as reflection and transformative practice advance. It is a movement governed by the dialectic action-reflection-action that supports the glimpse of new possibilities of ‘being more’ (Osowski 2010, 34). Thus, ‘the more we dream and make concrete ‘untested feasibilities’, the more they unfold and proliferate within our praxis and that of others’ (Freire 2010b, 280).

Freirean utopia ‘ … tends to the future as a challenge to human creativity and not a repetition of the present’ (McLaren 2001, 65); therefore, it is based on revolutionary action in the present in the light of a possible future (Passos 2010, 242). Moreover, it can only exist from an abstract collective conception already born and committed to its concreteness. With the proposal of ‘untested feasibility’, Freire counteracts the original and dominant idea of utopia: the ‘non-place’, the perfect and idealised place, impossible to be reached, popularised in the sixteenth century in Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ (More 2004). In tracing the history of the concept of utopia, Lopes and Aranha (2017) reflect that since antiquity, in popular and erudite literature, it is possible to identify references that refer to an idealised, dreamed place, without misery and oppression, as in the case of the period of the Platonic Republic; or references in the field of religiosity, as the idea of the Garden of Eden that emerged in biblical times. In ‘Utopia’, More popularises the term from a plot with significant political, critical and ironic connotations by promoting comparisons between an idealised place – the island of Utopia – and the bourgeois society of his time. He emphasises the abstract character of the idea-concept ‘non-place’ to reference the place/reality he wished to criticise.

However, instead of settling on the purely imaginary and fictional perspective of More’s Utopia, which has an end in itself, Freire treads a path in the opposite direction: that of the ‘concrete utopia’ with the notion of ‘critical hope’, ‘oriented towards the future’, and which significantly converges with the thought of Ernest Bloch (Freitas 2010, 501). Bloch is widely known for having critically re-signified the term utopia, and for having inserted it in the field of progressive resistance in oppressive contexts (Giroux and McLaren 1997). For McLaren (2001, 63), Bloch’s thought is configured in a ‘geography of desire’ by positioning the utopian function with a double power: the power to resist setbacks and adversities to keep hope mobilised for the realisation of the dream, and the power to define its realisation through praxis. Similar to Freire, Bloch’s visions are sometimes criticised for being romantic or excessively optimistic and idealistic (Giroux and McLaren 1997). However, in a certain way, it is those aspects that push the idea of utopia into dialogue with the revolutionary struggle of social movements enabling it to become a mobilising mechanism in the struggle for social change, as we will see in the case discussed in this article.

The subject agents of the utopian dream and revolutionary praxis

Erik Olin Wright claimed that the idea of utopia is rooted in two essential factors of the human condition: (i) suffering as a result of established social structures and institutions, and (ii) the calling to imagine alternative worlds. In this sense, focusing on the question of the realisation of dreams, Wright (2010) asks the following questions: Who are the agents of these utopian dreams to be realised? What sufferings and alternatives are involved?

Converging with Bloch in the ‘understanding of history as a possibility’ in which reality ‘is not fixed’ but ‘is being’ and ‘can be transformed’ (Freitas 2010, 501), Freire creatively enriches this vision by adding an essentially revolutionary character that can lead to the concrete making of utopian dreams. In this sense, two aspects of Freire’s proposal for the realisation of an ‘untested feasibility’ should be highlighted: one, a perspective that always starts from specific subjects – the oppressed; and two, a collective educational pedagogical path based on dialogue and the revolutionary praxis of the oppressed subjects. In other words, the Freirean utopia, which is essentially political, recognises that the ‘future is not made alone’ and that, therefore, it is necessary to commit to doing it through struggle and revolutionary praxis (Passos 2010, 242). This only becomes possible through collective action built and implemented by the very subjects impacted by the context that one seeks to transform.

McLaren (2001) adds that Freire’s proposal is based on two pillars. The first of these is a ‘historical commitment’, which involves the dialectical process of ‘denunciation-announcement’: ‘denunciation’ of how we are living and of the dehumanising structures; and the prophetic ‘announcement’ of how we could live through a process of humanisation (Freire 2000, 54). Freire (1985, 57) argues that ‘denunciation of a dehumanising situation […] increasingly demands precise scientific understanding of that situation [and] similarly, the annunciation of its transformation increasingly requires a theory of transforming action’. Moreover, ‘there is no annunciation without denunciation, just as every denunciation generates annunciation’ (58). Based on Ernest Bloch’s ideas, the second pillar is ‘radical democracy’ with emancipatory and subversive potential:

… in the sense of something always latent in the present, something eminently future-building that can be grasped at some point. This we call anticipatory consciousness. It is an ontological taking on the unconscious. It involves multiple levels of human desire. A calling that [Freire] describes as a ‘not yet’ of the eminent future (McLaren 2001, 63–64).

Throughout his works, and the educational projects he developed in various parts of the world, Paulo Freire concentrated on reinforcing the necessary position of the popular classes as ‘subjects of history’ and as ‘agents of the realisation of the dream’. The participation of the masses takes place in the human right to appear in history, not only as its object but also as its subject (Freire 2000, 55), so that dreams of what is possible can be built both in theory and practice. This originates in the subject, based on their analysis of the negative and the positive in society at any given moment in history (Freire and Faundez 1998). The protagonism of the masses in this process is what will ensure that the path towards making dreams possible is trodden in the ‘ … concrete conditions in which dreams are found’ since it is only from these conditions that a historical-social reality is transformed. According to Freire and Faundez (1998, 35), the realisation of a dream happens within a historical context; the design of a dream derives from the historical circumstances in which objective and subjective conditions are found in dialectical and not mechanical relation to each other. In this way, the dream is not realised from within itself, but from the concrete and conditions in which one finds oneself. For this to occur, it is necessary to understand the present not only as a present of limitations but also of possibilities

To move us towards a discussion about the applicability of Freire’s concrete utopian proposal, we explore the assumptions that have been adopted to create coherence between the theoretical proposal presented so far and the methods suggested by Freire. Then, we present certain conditions, or ‘dynamising factors’ that, for Freire, are crucial to realise any revolutionary praxis. Paludo (2010, 326) identified eight key principles that aim to align Freire’s methodology and theoretical proposal. These principles highlight the significance of popular masses’ involvement and include: being grounded in the process itself; experiencing ‘limit-situations’; enabling popular subjects’ participation; promoting popular and collective organisation; focusing on the theory-practice relationship; political education; cultural action; overcoming the dichotomy between technical-scientific and humanistic training; and finally having a foundation in humanising dialogue.

In the same way that the above premises could also be placed in a list of ‘principles’ to be considered for the concretisation of ‘untested feasibility’, we think it is equally relevant to point out certain conditions or ‘dynamising and necessary factors to transform the ‘untested feasibility’ projects into historical concreteness’ (Freire 2000, 9); these factors sustain the viability of this process happening through the popular masses. The first set of factors are the intrinsic conditions – the human conditions – that make all subjects ontologically oriented towards ‘being more human’, such as the capacity to love, have faith, humanise themselves, and become agents of change even in contexts of extreme adversity. This is a vocation that also requires enchantment and the enthusiasm that motivates and mobilises someone to engage in a utopian and prophetic vision, one that makes the subject fearless of the threats and challenges placed as barriers by oppressors and dominators.

The second set of factors is the mobilising conditions of the masses that drive emancipatory paths, as in the case of the deep and extreme indignation that intensifies with the emergence of a new critical consciousness of the existing unjust and unethical situation. This then becomes the fuel in the struggle for change as outrage becomes intertwined with the vision of dreams and possibilities (Freire 2010a). It is indignation that ‘ … is based on […] the revolt against the denial of the right to ‘be more’ inherently human’ (Freire 2000, 36). As Nita Freire argues (Freire 2000, 9), it was precisely from the dialectical relationship between these two contradictory feelings – humanist love and political indignation– that Freire saw the birth, in himself and others, of truly ethical and genuinely human actions capable of mobilising the realisation of dreams and new possibilities.

There is no possibility of thinking about tomorrow, whether near or far, without finding ourselves in a permanent process of ‘emersion’ in today, ‘soaked’ by the times we live in, touched by its challenges, provoked by its problems, insecure in the face of the senselessness that announces disasters, seized by honest anger in the face of profound injustices that express, at levels that cause amazement, the human capacity to transgress ethics – or also encouraged by testimonies of generous love, which strengthen necessary, but sometimes fragile, hope in us (Freire 2000, 54).

Freire (1987) concluded his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by declaring his faith in the people and the feasibility of a new world precisely after discussing at length the thesis that it is from these intrinsic conditions that the oppressed will find the fertile ground to organise collectively and transform their reality.

Finally, it is worth noting that Freire neither envisages nor necessarily considers relevant the complete realisation of a fixed dream; rather what he envisages is the result of the path and process of creating and recreating ‘possible dreams’ that tend to be emancipating. As argued by Faundez, it is the ‘Myth of Sisyphus’³:

This possible dream will never be a fixed possible dream; it will be a possible dream that will always be transforming, creating and re-creating itself, as the masses consider that this possible dream may have escaped them so that they can establish a new possible dream (Freire and Faundez 1998, 37).

In this sense, the viability of Freire’s liberating pedagogical proposal takes place in a dynamic process in which dreams, reflections and actions intertwine and modify each other as subjects act, reflect critically, and recreate them:

The concreteness of the work of the popular masses requires understanding that education, or the ‘cultural action for freedom’, involves a cognitive and an aesthetic field but departs from and returns to the political and social sphere, hence the concept of praxis, as articulating motion of the process practice – theory – practice – theory – practice … which extends indefinitely and points to reflection and action influencing the structures to be transformed (Paludo 2010, 326).

The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and popular agrarian reform: building a popular hegemony

So, what might this mean as praxis? In this second part we examine how the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) aligns with Freire’s utopian ideals. We shall start our analysis from the context and the conditions that gave birth to the dream of the ENFF: the emergence and consolidation of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and its struggle for ‘Popular Agrarian Reform’. The MST has gained notoriety as one of the most extensively researched and well-known social movements in Latin America (Tarlau 2019). It has become a global reference point for leftist organisations due to its successful campaigns in occupying land and pressuring governments to redistribute land to impoverished families. Since the early 1980s, the MST has been actively pressuring the state to grant land rights to hundreds of thousands of landless families. This has been achieved through occupations of privately and publicly owned land estates. As a result, these families now live on agrarian reform settlements where they have won access to various government services such as housing, roads, agricultural technical assistance, education, and health services.

In Brazil, nearly half (48%) of all private lands are concentrated in less than 2% of the total properties (Sparovek et al. 2019, 3). This significant concentration of land in the hands of large private landowners has its origins in the colonial period, an in particular in Portuguese colonial expansion in what is now known as Brazil. The sixteenth Century saw the beginnings of rural exploitation based on a system of export monoculture supported by slave labour. The process of colonising land and production established the roots of social inequality that persists today. Throughout the twentieth Century, Brazil has been through an intense process of capitalist modernisation that has sustained extreme levels of inequality, particularly in rural areas (Carter 2010, 189). In this context characterised by pervasive inequality, marginalisation, and social exclusion, the MST emerged in the late 1970s by mobilising landless families to occupy unproductive latifundia in rural Brazil, particularly in the southern region. This process of land occupation was grounded in the principle of ‘ … ensuring everyone a life with dignity, in accordance with the dictates of social justice’, as enshrined in the Brazilian Federal Constitution (Brasil 2013, 101), which empowers the government to expropriate rural property not performing its social function for purposes of agrarian reform⁴ (104). As argued by Meszaros (2010, 441), the ‘immense social and political pressures’ that occurred during the elaboration of the Brazilian Constitution in the 1980s resulted in a lack of clarity on the most controversial issues, as in the case of agrarian reform; therefore, he explains that the legal conflict around the topic ‘was incorporated from the very beginning’.

The MST officially became a social movement with its first national meeting in January 1984, defining its objectives in three areas: the struggle for land, agrarian reform, and social transformation, based on experiences and lessons learned in rural life. The first axis involves the immediate struggle for land, the second focuses on state land policies, and the third entails the transformation of power relations in society in favour of working-class and peasant interests (MST 2021). At the core of Freire’s approach, the MST’s strategy involves a dialectical diagnostic process that aims to raise consciousness through ‘denunciation-announcement’, reflection-action, and theory-practice. This approach leads to the development of alternative visions and possibilities while transforming reality in the daily lives of MST militants.

The MST has developed a distinct conceptualisation of agrarian reform that goes beyond the traditional understanding of land redistribution by government mandate. Rather, the MST’s agrarian reform framework is a theoretical and practical alternative to the agribusiness⁵ model, which the movement denounces as rooted in land concentration, exploitation of natural resources and human beings, and the perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production. This vision of agrarian reform is informed by the MST’s critical analysis of the lived reality of the peasant struggle and aims to promote a dignified life for rural communities by fostering food production based on agroecology, environmental conservation, cooperative production, and emancipatory relationships among rural workers. Its proposal aims to support peasants who fight or have access to land, producing healthy food and creating conditions for flourishing rural life, including education to increase income opportunities and promote social mobility, especially for women and young people.

The implementation of Popular Agrarian Reform is based on seven guiding principles: democratisation of access to land and natural resources, preservation of natural resources, sovereignty over seeds, sustainable food production, renewable energy development, access to cultural goods and quality public education for rural populations and ensuring all social rights for rural communities, such as security and labour rights. Implementing the MST agrarian reform programme involves the deconcentration of land ownership, where access to land is understood as a social and human right and an intrinsic part of the lives of millions of people living in rural areas. Moreover, the movement approaches the programme as a contribution to society as a whole, a counter-hegemonic and anti-capitalist project based on the utopian vision of an alternative society.

Carter (2010) argues that in a society marked by deep social divisions, such as Brazil, the emergence of a social movement as powerful and influential as the MST has inevitably led to conflict with the entrenched economic, political, and media interests in the country. Consequently, the movement has often been accused of being violent and anti-democratic. However, Carter contends that such accusations are baseless, and that the MST’s contribution to the consolidation of democracy in Brazil has been significant. He identifies four key areas in which the MST has made a positive impact: (i) by redefining the role of public activism and popular participation; (ii) by creating new spaces for the engagement of other marginalised and excluded groups in society; (iii) by providing a concrete utopian vision that reaffirms democratic values through action and praxis; and (iv) by challenging the state to play a more active role in defending human rights and promoting greater social equity through redistributive policies.

The MST has been organising large-scale mobilizations for 39 years. It currently comprises approximately 450,000 families who have acquired land for farming based on agroecological principles. The success of the movement is attributed to its ‘organicidade’ and political education, which emphasises responsibility and interdependence between different parts of the organisation. Regarding education, the Educação do Campo project, led by rural workers and their organisations, aims to influence education policy from the social interests of peasant communities. This project partners with higher education institutions to produce art and culture, socialise traditional knowledge, and promote values such as solidarity, companionship, and respect for building a new society. The movement considers Educação do Campo a constitutional right and has demanded better infrastructure and conditions for teachers and students, an increase in vacancies, and more adequate curricula for people from rural areas (Fernandes 2016, 152–156).

The National Florestan Fernandes School (ENFF): a political-pedagogical strategy of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST)

To understand the role of the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) in the MST’s political-pedagogical strategy, we will briefly contextualise and highlight the main dimensions that sustain the movement’s training model and education.

The MST has historically emphasised the political education and formation of its members, following a Gramscian strategy of developing ‘organic intellectuals’ in their communities (Karriem 2009). Drawing from Paulo Freire’s pedagogical proposals, the movement sees education as a fundamental component in achieving its strategic objectives, with collective participation valued in developing its educational programme. In the current context of a polarised class struggle, the MST recognises the role of popular organisations in deconstructing the imaginary spread by bourgeois ideology, which in turn reinforces capitalist ideals and values. Thus, political formation is considered central to promoting organised mobilisation and resistance, with the movement’s training programme dynamically adapting to the historical and political context of each moment. The MST also takes into account the available political forces in each territorial and historical context to develop a theoretical formulation that supports the working-class project of transforming their realities.

The MST’s approach to the training of its militants is grounded in the principles of popular education, which values the participation and direct involvement of the subjects and families living in MST territories. This is evident both in encampments, which are provisional land occupations, and in settlements where territorial lands have already been acquired and formalised. While encampments focus on developing a fundamental understanding of the political context and constructing alternative visions aimed at transformation, settlements prioritise practical, organisational, and political aspects of rural life, both aiming for community flourishing through democratic discussions. The educational programme developed by the MST also aims to prepare people for collective work, which includes training for the planning and elaboration of goals and the definition of priorities for each member of the public that participates in formative activities organised by the movement, such as courses, seminars, conferences and colloquiums. For this, the movement also prioritises the necessary educational infrastructure, either by building its own centres or by developing partnerships that offer accommodation, a kitchen with a dining room, and spaces for seminars and classes that can host students and educators.

The creation of the National Florestan Fernandes School (ENFF) was driven by the recognition of the significance of education for the MST movement and the requirement for a suitable and independent infrastructure. In 1996, the MST National Coordination decided to construct a national space that would not only meet the demands of the movement but also provide training activities for other national and international social organisations to strengthen political alliances, particularly with Via Campesina.⁶ The name of the facility pays tribute to Florestan Fernandes, one of the most distinguished Brazilian sociologists, and his legacy, which emphasised critical issues for the working class from which he came, and its subjects, and the need to explore new possibilities for a society based on social justice and democracy.

The ENFF vision was realised thanks to the movement’s collaboration with various segments of society, particularly progressive intellectuals and artists who supported the campaign to acquire the necessary financial resources to construct the school. The construction of the entire facility was executed through voluntary labour contributed by approximately one thousand workers, including women, young people, and men from different Brazilian states, with the backing of national and international social organisations. In her speech at the school inauguration. Professor Heloísa Fernandes highlighted that it was:

International solidarity, which made this School financially possible, and, in addition […] the work of those anonymous brigades of landless people, of those ‘heirs to the revolutionary tradition of the struggle for the democratisation of land ownership, and of agrarian politics’ who, brick by brick, ensured its construction […] (ENFF 2020b, 50).

ENFF Political and Pedagogical Project makes explicit the objective for which the school was built:

To organise and develop processes of ideological political training for militants, leaders and cadres of national and international popular organisations in order to contribute so that the working class in all its diversity, carries out social transformation with a view to socialism. (ENFF 2020a, 15)

The National Florestan Fernandes School (ENFF) employs a pedagogical approach that encompasses multiple formative dimensions, enabling a deepening of the subjects’ formation process. Its six main dimensions are: (i) study; (ii) organicidade; (iii) mística⁷; (iv) art and culture; (v) work; and (vi) humanistic values. These dimensions are implemented through various educational activities such as classes, readings, conversation circles, workshops, seminars, cultural events, and místicas. The participants’ social relationships are also an essential part of their educational experiences at the school. Courses are planned and implemented annually, with a diverse educational portfolio featuring various content levels and programmes customised to the participants. The ENFF’s entire operation is under the responsibility of a collective of MST militants from different Brazilian states who work on various areas such as transportation coordination, food production, infrastructure, educational support, and finance. The school is divided into units, including the vegetable gardens, children’s playground, communications management, secretaries, dining hall, and laundry, among others.

The ‘inéditos viáveis’ that make up the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF)

In this article, by discussing Paulo Freire’s ‘inédito viável’, we have sought to understand if (and, if so, how) the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) can be interpreted as part of a theoretical and practical exercise of exploring possibilities for transcending ‘limit-situations’ and transforming realities. It is worth noting that an essential premise in our analysis, which is also reflected in our conclusion, was to not take the ENFF as an isolated project or object of analysis of a concrete utopia to be framed, studied and understood as an end in itself. Instead, based on Freire’s proposal, we aimed to analyse the case from a broader view of a concrete utopia as part of a historical process oriented towards alternative futures. This framework considers the numerous interactions, actions and practices that can enable new visions for the future and promote other discoveries and perspectives that have the potential to allow new ‘inéditos viáveis’ flourish along the way.

We argue that the educational project of the MST within which the ENFF emerged is centred on some of the most relevant aspects that characterise the idea of concrete utopia discussed in the first part of this article. As argued by Tarlau (2019), throughout its history, the movement has constituted utopian visions that materialise in spaces for experimentation with alternative pedagogical practices, as in the case of the ENFF, which are grounded in social relations, solidarity, cooperation, and a sense of collectiveness. She points out that the visions that constitute such ‘real educational utopia’ (Wright 2010) have been in permanent transition and expansion, are dynamic and open to change, resulting from the innumerable trials since the founding of the movement, involving much dialogue and partnerships with local, regional and national governments.

In the same vein, Xavier and Pimenta (2018) argues that the MST has developed a concrete utopia that encompasses more than just land reform. The Popular Agrarian Reform, a broader proposal aimed at transforming society as a whole, has become a central project of the MST, with education playing a crucial role in its implementation (Souza 2003). The MST’s vision of a concrete utopia serves as a mechanism for critique and action, mobilising people towards a better future. According to Karriem (2009), the implementation of the popular counter-hegemonic utopia demands the development of a popular counter-hegemonic common sense, self-organisation, leadership, building alliances, and the rethinking of nature-society relations through sustainable practices. In this sense, through the ENFF, the MST reinforces the meaning of committed, voluntary and utopian work as a primordial value for the construction of a free and fair society, serving as a microcosm of the possibilities of what free individuals can build for themselves and society as a whole (Pizetta 2007). Thus, the MST’s concrete utopia goes beyond land reform and serves as a beacon of hope for a more equitable and just society.

The ENFF serves as a hub for educational experimentation and coordination between the formal higher education system and the needs and demands of social movements with respect to both technical and political education. Owing to its innovative and autonomous nature, ENFF is often challenging to categorise within the conventional institutional framework of formal education. Consequently, Minto (2015) notes that the ENFF’s formal character is a matter of some debate, with some characterising it as a higher education institution, a popular university, or even a political school of thought that seeks to distance itself from its own institutional identity. Indeed, the ENFF was envisioned as an exploratory space for cohabitation, exchange of ideas, values, culture, analysis, and study; a laboratory where new possibilities could be nurtured to serve as a catalyst for ongoing struggles towards the Organization’s objectives (ENFF 2020b, 19).

We now highlight three aspects that reinforce our interpretation that this is a project that converges with Freire’s idea of inédito viável:

(1) the relevance of its experimental character for the movement, constituting a dynamic laboratory ‘since it does not limit itself to cultivating a distanced ideal of a liberated society, but instead focuses on the means and method to achieve it’ (Poker 1997, 88); promoting spaces and experimental processes that contribute to pedagogically addressing relevant questions for the movement, such as the coherence between discourse/theory and practice, between reflection and action, and above all, between the utopian dream and its realisation. As Karriem (2009) argues, this process of experimentation by the MST is part of a long and slow process of resistance and the practical and ideological struggle for an alternative hegemony. Thus, this counter-hegemonic movement does not follow a political trajectory with continuous progress; instead, it is essentially one of resistance, ‘marked by conquests and defeats, offensive and defensive struggles, loss of lives and the conquest of land’ (324). A history of struggle without precedents and references, in which experimentation with the ability to learn from past mistakes is an engine of resistance and struggle.

(2) the strengthening of peasants’ protagonism, fostering a strong sense of agency through the participation and direct involvement of MST militants in building spaces such as those of the ‘real educational utopia’ discussed by Tarlau (2019). In the movement’s educational project, dreams are given form and meaning from the collective reading of the world; they are articulated, tested and take shape through the actions of the movement’s militants. Bauer and Moraes (2015) note that from the very beginning of the movement’s establishment, the MST took into account that the training of militants would be as important as the land occupations, adopting education and the process of political consciousness-raising as one of its most important pillars. MST’s educational programme is also designed to nurture ‘feelings of dignity, self-confidence, and social responsibility among its members’ (Carter 2010, 201), to make militant peasants become the direct agents of change. Moreover, Camacho (2021) argues that the ENFF has managed to advance in its ‘inédito viável’ direction, developing an emancipatory educational pedagogy to overcome limiting dichotomies established in the production of scientific knowledge. This is evident in the case of ‘militancy versus intellectual training; popular knowledge versus technical-scientific knowledge; manual work versus intellectual work; theory versus practice; and action versus reflection’ (Camacho 2021, 206).

(3) the role of the ENFF as a space of articulation for building a broad and collective utopian project, which aims at the transformation of society as a whole, going beyond the boundaries of the peasant movement and promoting internationalism and alliances with national and international bodies, intellectuals and movements, in order to strengthen the local and global counter-hegemonic struggle.

From its early days, the movement has helped inspire new horizons and heartened visions of a more just society. By cultivating a resilient sense of hope and quest for another world, the MST has bolstered the dreams and ideals of equality, liberty, and participation that have invigorated movements for democratisation throughout world history. (Carter 2010, 211).

Silva and Fernandes (2021) suggest that the ENFF, as part of the MST’s holistic approach to its social movement role, enhances its internationalism and reinforces its class perspective through practice, trust-building, and collective coexistence. In addition, the ENFF serves as a crucial platform for the MST to collaborate with higher education institutions, representing the pinnacle of the relationship between socio-territorial movements and universities (Camacho 2021, 205–206). This collaborative and autonomous space aims to integrate formal education with the MST’s activities and those of other social movements. The ENFF’s conception of education and militancy centres around the mystical experiences, the integration of manual and intellectual labour, and the organisation of tasks for the school’s maintenance during courses. As Paz and Oliveira (2020) argue, this contributes significantly to strengthening class solidarity and promoting the continuous development of socialist consciousness, which is critical to constructing an alternative hegemonic societal order. The ENFF’s impact is felt profoundly by the hundreds of thousands of fighters who passionately advocate for social justice and a popular national project, fiercely resisting as they say, ‘the tyrannical fury of bloodthirsty capitalists’ (38).

Conclusion

According to Freire, the effectiveness of the ‘inédito viável’ concept depends on the possibility of seeing dreams as feasible. As Kane (2016) explains, the educational project of the MST is rooted in a specific struggle that has tangible benefits for its protagonists, beginning with the possibility of obtaining a piece of land, which serves as a strong incentive for mobilisation and participation. However, this benefit gains meaning and strength from a broader political, social, cultural, and economic perspective, which broadens the vision of that specific conquest to a new and appealing possibility of living collectively, a socialist-based alternative that demands new collective struggles both within and outside the movement. Thus, the struggle for land and the attempt to work it successfully led to other questions of broader political realities that increase the motivation to learn and achieve new goals.

Therefore, it can be concluded that for the MST, the utopian vision, the struggle, and the learning process are central to the movement and unfold in the three dimensions of the concrete utopia. The first dimension involves raising the peasants’ political consciousness, including an understanding of class struggles and historical and current issues that prevent changing their oppressive realities. The second dimension involves understanding actors and social structures and determining necessary scenarios, strategies, and alliances to transform a given reality. Finally, the third dimension involves the construction of ‘limit-acts’, which characterises the concretisation of the ‘inédito viável’. These dimensions are the result of and the engine for the mobilisation of militants in the process of building a popular hegemony, strengthening their sense of agency and determining the dynamic character of the ‘inédito viável’.

The ENFF is part of this broad utopian process which aims to build a democratic and just society, as one of the numerous ‘inédito viável’ mobilising projects of the MST. It is still under construction and is the result of (and laboratory for) many other ‘inéditos viáveis’ that the movement has carried out over the last four decades. As defined by Pizetta (2007), it is a project and dream that became a reality as a result of a collective process. Therefore, the ENFF should not be seen as a mere geographic space or physical structure effectively consolidated but as a dynamic, dialectic process built in everyday life. It approaches education as a space to collectively experience and build utopias through the militants themselves and their allies who join in the dream of an alternative world.

Disclosure statement

One of the authors declares that they are affiliated with the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), the organisation that is the subject of the research presented in this paper. However, both authors state that the ENFF did not have any role in the conception, conduct, or interpretation of the results of this study.

Notes

1 Freire (2005, 102) wrote ‘When the themes are concealed by the limit-situations and thus are not clearly perceived, the corresponding tasks—people’s responses in the form of historical action—can be neither authentically nor critically fulfilled. In this situation, humans are unable to transcend the limit-situations to discover that beyond these situations—and in contradiction to them—lies an untested feasibility’.

2 In Freire’s works one can find numerous ‘word-concepts’; words which he created or resignified. ‘Paulo Freire was a man who sowed and cultivated words. Not just any words, but words ‘pregnant with the world,’ as he used to say. Words that have the gift of creating worlds, of pronouncing new realities’ (Streck, Redin, and Zitkoski 2010, 27).

3 The adjective Sisyphean denotes a task which can never be completed. See at: https://www.worldhistory.org/sisyphus/

4 ‘[T]he social function is met when the rural property complies simultaneously with, according to the criteria and standards prescribed by law, the following requirements: i – rational and adequate use; ii – adequate use of available natural resources and preservation of the environment; iii – compliance with the provisions that regulate labour relations; iv – exploitation that favours the well-being of the owners and labourers’ (Brasil 2013, 105).

5 Agribusiness in Brazil is characterized by the dominance of big transnational firms who supply inputs and set commodity prices, with strong state support and protection through measures such as negligible taxation, lax enforcement of laws, judicial favoritism, and inflated compensations for land expropriations, as described by Stédile (2009) and Carter (2010).

6 La Via Campesina is a global movement striving to establish rural economies that prioritize respect for peasants and land, as well as Food Sovereignty and fair trade. See at: https://viacampesina.org/en/.

7 MST’s mística, which draws on Christian mysticism to affirm unity with transcendent reality, is seen as an ontological resource integral to the movement and used to bring about changes in minds, spirits, and hearts.