culturas da minha terra*: Terra da Lona (Land of Plastic Houses) Paraná and Pernambuco 2012-2014

Brazil is famously known as the land of soccer, samba, beautiful bodies and carefree beach life, With the increased attention on the country given the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games, a bit more has gotten out--with favela-demolitions, evictions, and widespread popular protests against event-driven development schemes, with the neglect of basics like public education and health care.

Yet, little (if anything) in international media has addressed the long-term problem that remains unresolved in the rural regions of Brazil, i.e., high levels of land concentration and landlessness. I would like to show some of my photographic impressions of Brazil, after more than 12 months here...

it seems to me that Brazil is

the land of plastic houses.

Caruaru/PE, March 2014.

Denilson and Friends at the Kaingang(Indigenous) Reservation, Tamarana/PR, January 2014

This is the first land occupation that I visited, in August 2012. This was my house for 5 days. The occupation is located in Porecatu, PR. Now perhaps because I developed some fairly unpleasant health problems in the aftermath, the experience stuck with me and was somewhat traumatic: no sanitation, no clean water, sick animals. I remember this intense feeling of anger, indignation I suppose--confused that in order to access constitutional rights, people had to break the law. In order to gain a life of dignity, the folks had to suffer as they were.

According to Brazilian law, lands should be expropriated, and redistributed if they do not comply with their social function (if they are unproductive, delinquent taxes owed, or charges of environmental or slave labor on a given property). However, the process is often delayed, painfully slow (some families have waited some 15 years in Paraná state, for example), and land occupiers face violence and eviction threats.

my hostess.

But, in Porecatu the people were happy, kind, outgoing. They were confident that it was just a matter of time until the land was theirs. They had built a school for the children of the encampment. They were hopeful that soon they would receive their constitutional right to land, in order to live and work.

These same hopes are shared by some 160,000+ Brazilians who are currently signed up/and or waiting/living in land occupations throughout the country today.

Now Porecatu is a particularly significant encampment, in terms of Brazil's history of struggle for land redistribution. It was the site of a "war that the communists forgot," according to a book title about the conflict. Here, squatters organized peasant leagues, and took up arms to demand their right to land. The bodies of some 200 peasants were thrown into the river.

Today, Porecatu lies in the heart of the sugarcane belt of Northern Paraná. During harvest season, it is surrounded by cane fires of nearby properties. As the photo demonstrates, the campers have preserved the forest reserve.

There is much diversity in terms of these communities,

most that I visited were organized by the MST, others were indigenous occupations, and others were occupations that predated the MST.

Brenda, in front of gate in her land occupation, Caruaru, PE (2014).

Brenda's house is made of yellow plastic, and is in an old chicken coop, shared with some 80 other families.

Filhos da Luta, Santa Maria da Boa Vista, PE

A fairly new land occupation, "Sons of the Struggle," in Santa Maria da Boa Vista/PE, March 2014

New Settlement/Transition Phase, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, Cascavel/PR (January 2014)

Having had to wait so many years for a piece of land, some of my friends (including sons and daughters of MST settlers) have become professional land occupiers of sorts. They have built wooden homes, one even has an extensive library and WIFI.

They produce a lot--when I visited, they had lots of corn fields planted, and folks were organizing their lots.

Guarani Occupation, Antonina, PR

Jonas, regional dirigente of the MST, inside of a Guarani tent.

Rio Pequeno, Antonina/PR

This occupation predates the MST, it is some 30+ years old. Displaced by mechanization of agriculture and the coffee crisis in the 1970s, some families left Northern Paraná and headed for the virgin forests along the litoral coast of the state. They cleared patches of forest, suffered and struggled, but overtime built a new community.

After being threatened by eviction, due to carbon-credit sequestration schemes and so forth, the 16 families contacted the MST and registered with INCRA. They farm organically, collectively, and this is the most beautiful community I've seen.