Abstract

In this review, I highlight the valuable contributions of Wendy Wolford’s latest book, which rest on her extensive understanding of the diversity of the Brazilian countryside and her acute ability to weave together the impact that land-tenure patterns, labour regimes and regional cultures have had upon settlers of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement. It also assesses the central claim of the book which suggests that the MST is often unable to retain its membership because the leadership reproduces an understanding of peasant agriculture that is specific to the South of Brazil. The review argues that Wolford’s main argument falls foul of four shortcomings related to her methodology, her understanding of the MST’s ideology, her choice of not including the process of encampment and the MST’s commitment to radical social change in her analysis, and finally her problematic interpretation of the relationship between the grassroots membership and the leadership of the movement.