Abstract
The article aims to investigate the relationship between the process experienced by the community of Cachoeirinha (Varzelândia, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais) and the actions of organizations and social movements mobilized in the struggle for land, seeking to unveil part of the political mediations that made possible the resistance of posseiros in the region, initiatives of confrontation by those workers, and how their struggles were carried out in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Based on some methodological principles of oral history and microhistory, we conducted interviews with some of those who had participated in the mobilizations and analyzed dense written material produced by various public agencies, the press, social movements, and political organizations that acted in the region during that period. It was this possible to see that, even in the face of strong repression, several actors sought to mediate the strengthening the posseiros’ struggles and their connections with external groups, enabling the most explicit emergence of their demands during the Brazilian ‘political opening’ in the 1980s.
Keywords
Cachoeirinha; Fight for Land; Political Mediation