Protagonismo e participação política da juventude do Movimento das/os Trabalhadoras/es Rurais Sem Terra (MST) em Alagoas

Abstract

The present research seeks to discuss the relationship between youth and political participation in contemporary times. The youth we focus on in this study is the rural youth of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in Alagoas. The research aimed to analyze the political participation carried out by the youth of the MST in Alagoas. Therefore, the specific objectives outlined were to investigate the trajectories and conceptions of politics present in the discourses of the youth of the MST; analyze the processes of organization and occupation of spaces by young people within the movement; identify the struggles undertaken by the youth; the existing challenges in their trajectories of political participation in the Movement; and strategies to strengthen militancy through art and friendship. Studies on youth, decolonial knowledge and intersectionality were the epistemic and methodological basis of this work, enabling a writing based on the experiences and paths of the young people who contributed to the construction of the work. through this, it was possible to perceive the crossings that intersect their realities and, in an engaged, ethical and political way, analyze how their processes of political action take place, given the fact that they are in a specific place, which is to be young in a movement rural social. The tools used to establish contact were the holding of conversations, the monitoring of movements and events held virtually, through social media and the appreciation of data constructed by the young people themselves in the exercise of their militant activities. Five young people from the MST from different regions of the state participated in these conversations. The form of registration was through recording and diaries about the exchanges carried out. Through conversations, monitoring of social media, artistic and documentary productions of young people published on official MST networks, it was possible to build five axes of analysis, which are: 1) trajectories of MST young people and their political conceptions; 2) occupation of MST spaces: participation and political expression of young people; 3) struggles undertaken by the youth of the MST in Alagoas; 4) challenges of the militant youth of the MST and 5) militancy, art and friendship. The results suggest that the entry of these young people into the Movement and into politics itself happened both because of the dissatisfaction with the living conditions they have, and because of the elements of admiration, identification and search for social transformations. We hope, through this research, to contribute so that the tensions and generalizations generated from adultcentric and universalizing perspectives, which try to muffle the voices and articulations of young people, are increasingly called into question. We consider it important to highlight the contributions, efforts and actions that young people have undertaken with such dedication and tenacity. In addition, we seek to collaborate to strengthen a debate that reinforces plurality in relation to ways of being young and acting politically.