NEW AGRICULTURES FOR A NEW REALITY: the metamorphosis social conflicts in the countryside of São Paulo in response to the global climate emergency.

• Grant number: 23/08320-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Applied Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques
• Grantee: José Caio Quadrado Alves
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/05566-0 - Legitimate forms of agriculture in western conservationist discourse: circulation of ideas between France and Brazil from a Sociohistorical Perspective, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The proposal aims to analyze the new perspectives of social and political organization present in social conflicts in the São Paulo countryside today, resulting from the emergence of values associated with the global climate urgency. What are the strategies of the social movement in confronting climate risks, as well as in denouncing the mode of production of conventional agriculture, and to what extent do they help to highlight the multifunctionality of agroecological family farming? Two case studies are planned: in the Mário Lago Settlement, categorized as a Sustainable Development Project (PDS), in Ribeirão Preto/SP, and in the Marielle Vive camp, an agroecological proposal occupation located in Valinhos/S, both coordinated by the Landless Workers Movement (MST). Supported by the sociology of justifications with the implementation of ethnographic techniques, the methodology consists of: observing, through participant observation, the daily activities of agroecological practices in the settlement; collecting a substantial amount of accounts through life history interviews; and finally, conducting a survey of relevant official documents. A thorough analysis of the data will be carried out around the trajectories and motivations of the actors, notably with the purpose of discussing the construction of justifications for actions, particularly those that mobilize ecological justice references. The analysis of these cases will allow for a comparison of the different strategies in the process of constructing and/or mobilizing evidence of the veracity of ecological arguments in different contexts. It is therefore a discussion of the agroecological option as a form of MST action in line with environmental agendas for climate change mitigation and adaptation.