Busboys Books Presents: Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement Transformed Brazilian Education
Date and Time
Nov 5, 2019 6:00 pm
Location
Takoma
235 Carroll St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20012
Nov 5, 2019 6:00 pm
Takoma
This is a free event, seats are first come, first served. Author discussion will begin at 6:30PM. Books will be available in the bookstore before and after the book signing. Full menu and bar will be available for purchase throughout the event. Catherine Murphy will be in conversation with Rebecca. The Literacy Project is a co-sponor for this event.
Over the past thirty-five years the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America, has become famous globally for its success in occupying land, winning land rights, and developing alternative economic enterprises for over a million landless workers. The movement has also linked education reform to its vision for agrarian reform by developing pedagogical practices for schools that foster activism, direct democracy, and collective forms of work. In Occupying Schools, Occupying Land, Rebecca Tarlau explores how MST activists have pressured municipalities, states, and the federal government to implement their educational program in public schools and universities, affecting hundreds of thousands of students. Contrary to the belief that movements cannot engage the state without demobilizing, Tarlau shows how educational institutions can help movements recruit new activists, diversify their membership, increase technical knowledge, and garner political power.
Rebecca Tarlau is an Assistant Professor of Education and Labor and Employment Relations at the Pennsylvania State University, affiliated with the Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Program, the Comparative and International Education program, and the Center for Global Workers’ Rights. She has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley (2014) and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University (2015-2017). Her ethnographic research agenda has three broad areas of focus: (1) Theories of the state and state-society relations; (2) Social movements, critical pedagogy, and learning; (3) Latin American education and development.
THE LITERACY PROJECT is a documentary oral history project that has been collecting personal testimonies about literacy since 2003.
Our work lifts up the stories of those who are teaching literacy to others or are struggling to achieve literacy themselves.
We use documentary storytelling to connect with historical and present-day movements for literacy and education justice.
Catherine Murphy is a DMV-based documentary filmmaker and the founding director of The Literacy Project.
