The rise of LGBT representation in the Landless Workers’ movement in Brazil

Abstract

In 2017, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) institutionalised a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) collective as part of its representative claims on behalf of the marginalised. This study explains the conditions preceding such representation and how this is now negotiated by the MST and its members in the context of land justice in Brazil. In addition, it discusses the construction of peasant and LGBT as bounded political identities. The argument presented is that the coupling of peasant and LGBT representations relies on a convergence of events happening locally and globally, which–in addition to granting the MST important representational value–has resulted in improved living conditions for sexual and gender minorities.