Ecofeminism and the MST’s educational programs: A case study from the Brazilian state of Paraná.

This thesis explores the overlapping ideological and pedagogical tenets between Ecofeminism and the MST’s (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra / Landless Worker’s Movement) educational model. One of the tools the MST uses to advance the rights of landless workers are settlement schools, in which classes are used to construct a new epistemology. This thesis focuses on how the Colégio Estadual do Campo Contestado (CECC), a specific settlement school in the South of Brazil, tries to advance these overlapping ideological tenets – intersectional aspects of social justice, acknowledgment of the unachievable, undesirable and unsustainable aspect of the catching-up development strategy, and the need for a new epistemology on socioeconomic development – on the ground. Overall, this thesis argues that the Brazilian public education system, along with patriarchal aspects of rural dynamics; the contradictions within Contestado’s own settlement regarding organic production; and the strength of Western scientific paradigms, together limit the CECC’s practical advancement of ideological and pedagogical tenets shared by the MST and Ecofeminism.