Struggling for health is struggling for agrarian reform: a study on health practices within the Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated health practices in settlements and camps of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in the region of Vale do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais, Brazil. We sought to identify health care practices consistent with MST’s health care objectives, debate on norms and values and possible renormalizations within this framework, using Collective Health and Ergology as theoretical bases. The investigated activities were: agroecological farming, teaching activities involving health and environment actions, as well as health care activities. The results indicate values related to the struggle for agrarian reform and for the transformation of society, but also related both to the valorization of popular health care practices and to the development of the autonomy of rural workers. The incorporation of the project/health inheritance of MST, to some extent, proved to be more effective, as it reaches the collective movements, demonstrating that establishing new health standards involves the political organization of settlements and agrarian reform camps.