From the countryside to the city, from the city to the countryside: the land communes project and the subject issue of land reform

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the creation of a new kind of land reform settlement in Brazil – the Comunas da Terra, or Land Communes. These settlements were proposed by MST (Brazil's Landless Workers’ Movement) and are located in São Paulo state, near to large urban centers. The article attempts to identify the changing nature of the social subjects who engage in the agrarian reform process. In order to understand Land Communes, one must analyze agrarian reform social subjects. But, to approach this question, in turn, one must examine Brazilian migratory processes, and particularly the role that São Paulo plays in these processes, as well as the increasing importance of rural return migration.