This paper analyses farmers' social status in rural settlements concerning the structure of economic power in Brazilian society and the perspectives of income generation in the context of oligopolized markets. It is argued that, as owners of small productive assets, they are integrated into a social space that tends to establish a simple reproduction of family members working conditions. This context presents some options for implementation of alternatives to income generation that are restricted to the characteristics of the areas where settlements are located and the socio-cultural properties incorporated by the farmers through their social trajectory. The situations discussed in this paper aim to identify not only power relationships, but also their materialization in symbolic systems stemming from historical and structural inequality in Brazilian society. The incorporation of objective and subjective structures by the settlers, expressed in the settlements, constitutes parameters to access and build markets in a different way.
Rural settlements; MST; Market building; Small productive assets
