The present paper aims to analyze the constitution of a particular labor union formed by family farmers in southern Brazil. Through document analysis and interviews with union members the study sought to identify the trajectory of the new rural unionism in the region. The starting point for the analysis is an existing debate within the rural segment of the Workers Unified Union (Central Única dos Trabalhadores - CUT) in the 1980s and early 1990s about the possible constitution of small farmers and rural workers unions. The analysis focus on the introduction of such debate into CONTAG, during the process of formal consolidation of rural workers union in the mid-1990s, on the conflicts that emerged from this process and on the internal division that led to the formation, in 2001, in southern Brazil of a family farmers union, the FETRAF-Sul. Based on these analyses, the study aimed to understand the constitution of, firstly, a movement for social and political affirmation of family farming in the South and, later, of a labor union of family farmers in the country that enabled the creation of new channels for expressing identities and claiming social recognition.
Unionism; Family farming; Recognition; FETRAF; Southern Brazil
