Education and defense of territory in the Latin American social movements. A dialogue between Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina

Abstract

This article compiles the work that has been done together with different Latin American social movements. In the first, we analyze the characteristics of the processes of dispossession that capitalism, in its neoliberal stage, has undertaken throughout Latin America, as well as the responses that social movements have deployed in defense of their territories. The second section suggests a close relationship between political-pedagogical projects and the defense of the territory held by social movements. The research has been developed from a theoretical and practical approach based on the work done with diverse social movements and two research stays. The examples presented were chosen based on their representativeness at the regional level and for the similarities they can establish with other movements. Results show how the defense of the territory is not reduced to direct confrontation with the State and the capital through actions of protest or facing the development of megaprojects, it is rather a wider process that stands outside of the traditional political apparatus. In this dispute, the political-pedagogical project establishes a dialectic relation between school-community-movement that generates multiple spaces for the defense of the territory.