Crianças no movimento sem terra e a política como “rito de iniciação”
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Data
2025-07-04
Autores
Auer, Franceila
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Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo
Resumo
Based on an ethnographic study conducted in the Histórias Vividas Settlement, located in the municipality of São Mateus/ES, this study employs observations, interviews, discussion circles, photographs, children’s drawings, and field notes, aiming to analyze whether children’s participation in the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) constitutes a form of political confrontation experienced by them in the company of adults. At the intersection of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy and the reflections of the field of Sociology of Childhood, which have distinct epistemological paths, the study questions whether the experience of MST, in its present and/or past expression, may reveal a form of political participation by children. It presents, as inspiration, an episode discussed by the philosopher Hannah Arendt and the African-American author Ralph Ellison, which took place in the United States of America during the 1950s, after racial segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional, leading to black children attending an institution in Little Rock that had previously been attended by white students, causing an uproar in society. For Hannah Arendt, such a situation represented the exposure of children to a political problem that should be solved by adults. Ralph Ellison, on the other hand, pointed out that black children would go through an “initiation rite” from an early age, as a basic test of survival for life, which led Hannah Arendt to rethink her positioning. The study questions whether children involved in social movements are similarly exposed to political struggles alongside other generational groups. Contemporary fields of study, such as Sociology of Childhood, advocate for children’s participation in public life, although they do not explicitly define a concept of politics. The findings indicate that, in their own ways of interpreting the world, children share with adults a form of “action”, extracting politics from the intergenerational experience. By being initiated in politics, they are educated and engage in politics with the other generational categories, within their own rationalities and ways of understanding the world. The study concludes that there is a political confrontation of adults with children, without making them responsible for problems that precede their birth, nor throwing them alone and unprotected into the world, but from the perspective that recognizes them as participants in the struggle, considering them both in the present and future, and not separating them from a world in which they are expected to act and establish new beginnings.
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Palavras-chave
Participação política , Hannah Arendt , Sociologia da Infância