ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author analyzes how particular understandings of space, or what she calls "spatial imaginaries"—cognitive frameworks, both collective and individual, constituted through the lived experiences, perceptions, and conceptions of space itself—influenced the formation of the largest grassroots social movement in Brazilian history, the Movement of Rural Landless Workers. She compares settlers who were originally small family farmers in the southern state of Santa Catarina to settlers who were originally rural plantation workers in the northeastern state of Pernambuco. In the southern case study, small farmers, whom Eric Wolf would have called "middle farmers," used their experiences of production and reproduction on the land to question the large landholders' claim to property. They joined the movement because they had the social, cultural, and material resources to fund their struggle, and they believed that doing so was worthwhile.
