'One pulls the other': black canvas tents and movements as social mechanisms of land occupations world on the Brazilian context

Abstract

In this paper I inquire about how people, participating in landless encampments produce social mechanisms, daily creative social ties and relationships that allow the existence of encampments, rural workers movements and organizations. I take the characteristic black canvas tents of landless encampments as ethnographical central thread to explore, in action, the local expression “one pulls the other” that put in motion people, objects, attention, care, affections, complaints and news. In this process, movement and circulation are key in the production of enduring or temporary social relationships. Guarani and kaiowa encampments and land occupations serve in this article as ethnographical and methodological counterpoint that allows me to present how landless encampments have social effects in people’s life. Finally, I bring some observations about a specific local vocabulary mobilized by landless workers that describe the encampment experience.