{"id":39019,"date":"2025-07-18T14:39:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redept.org\/blogosfera\/lgbti-members-of-via-campesina-point-out-the-main-challenges-in-defending-the-body-territory\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T14:39:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T17:39:04","slug":"lgbti-members-of-via-campesina-point-out-the-main-challenges-in-defending-the-body-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redept.com.br\/blogosfera\/lgbti-members-of-via-campesina-point-out-the-main-challenges-in-defending-the-body-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBTI+ members of Via Campesina point out the main challenges in defending the \u201cbody-territory\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Tambourines, maracas, and popular dance moves set the tone for the opening ceremony. Photo: Maria de Quadros.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Wesley Lima and Anthony Lu\u00edz<\/em><\/p>\n

The nine-degree cold at the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF) in Guararema (SP) hasn\u2019t dampened the spirits of the movements and organizations from the countryside, waters and forests that have been holding the 4th LGBTI+ Seminar of La Via Campesina Brazil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The seminar, which began last wednesday (17), aims to create a space for study, reflection, and the projection of a set of actions that will guide Via Campesina in building the struggles in the current political and economic context in Latin America.<\/p>\n

The colorful flags, the drums, tambourines, maracas, and the popular dance steps of the people in struggle and resistance in Brazil set the tone for the opening of the training activities, which will continue until next sunday (20).<\/p>\n

The event includes debates on topics such as \u201cBody-Territory in Sexual and Gender Diversity\u201d, \u201cChallenges and Perspectives in the Construction of Public Policies\u201d and \u201cAncestry and Good Living\u201d. There will also be spaces for self-care and to encourage the self-organization of the LGBTQIA+ population, seeking to increase the visibility of the experiences and challenges faced by LGBTI+ people in the countryside, waters and forests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

D\u00ea Silva, a member of La Via Campesina\u2019s LGBTI+ Collective, explains that the main objective of the seminar is to build an exercise in study, reflection and planning of organizational actions within Via Campesina, which can continue to strengthen processes of struggle. \u201cThe steps we will take in structuring this debate within La Via will be the size of our capacity to organize,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The 1st National LGBTI+ Seminar in Via Campesina Brazil was held in July 2021, virtually, aiming to elaborate on the challenges of the struggle for territory, land and food sovereignty, through a common reading of the situation and its impacts on the lives of LGBTI+ people. Four years later, the challenges of organizing this debate in Via Campesina and the urgent need to defend bodies-territories are still on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Violence and prospects for resistance<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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The Seminar\u2019s first study panel addressed the topic \u201cAnalysis of the current situation and the challenges of the LGBTI+ struggle in national and international politics.\u201d Photo: Maria de Quadros.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Seminar\u2019s first panel dealt with the theme \u201cAnalysis of the current situation and the challenges of the LGBTI+ struggle in national and international politics\u201d and was mediated by C\u00e1ssia Bechara, from the national leadership of the Landless Rural Workers\u2019 Movement (MST) and the ENFF\u2019s Political and Pedagogical Coordination. Also participated on the debate Cony Oviedo, from the Latin American Coordination of the Countryside (CLOC) \u2013 Via Campesina, and Alessandro Mariano, head of office at the National Secretariat for the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People, of the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bechara explains that this moment of reflection on the conjuncture is important because the current social and political moment is being determined by structural elements at an international level that \u201ccross us and combine\u201d. \u201cThe elements aren\u2019t necessarily new, but it\u2019s important to take them into account in order to level them out,\u201d explains.<\/p>\n

\"\"
C\u00e1ssia Bechara, from the national leadership of the Landless Workers\u2019 Movement (MST) and the Political-Pedagogical Coordination of the ENFF, moderated the opening panel. Photo: Maria de Quadros.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to her, Latin America is going through a set of crises that have acted in combination. The structural crisis of capitalism, an element of analysis that has already been signalled by the movements and organizations of Via Campesina for some time, structured the debate, taking into account the perspective of its production model, connected to the intensification of a social economic crisis, the environmental crisis and the geopolitical crisis.<\/p>\n

In addition, a number of factors were highlighted that directly impact the working world today, with a focus on precariousness, overexploitation, the logic of entrepreneurship fragmenting the prospects for a process of class recognition, besides informality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBody-territory\u201d and capitalism crises<\/strong><\/h3>\n

These elements are the basis for understanding violence and its impact on the \u201cbody-territory\u201d, taking into account the increase in hunger, the growth of fundamentalist thinking and the absence of a popular project for the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
The 4th Seminar will feature discussions on topics such as \u201cBody-Territory in Sexual and Gender Diversity,\u201d \u201cChallenges and Perspectives in the Development of Public Policies,\u201d and \u201cAncestry and Well-Being.\u201d Photo: Maria de Quadros.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cony Ovyedo draws attention to these crises, and how they drive coups d\u2019\u00e9tat<\/em> throughout Latin America. \u201cThese coups were fundamental to the rise of the extreme right on our continent,\u201d explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way to contain the crises of capitalism is with extreme violence. Whether in territories or in bodies. And this violence has deepened in the territories, due to the advance of agribusiness, hydro-business and mining, which are positioned as the foundations of violence in peasant territories, as they represent the frontiers of exploitation of natural goods in capitalism\u201d, analyzes.<\/p>\n

She also points out that territorial violence criminalizes struggles, increases persecution, threats, arrests and murders. \u201cThe dispute in the territories is patriarchal, colonial, LGBT-phobic and sexist. And we are the organizations that have historically defended the territories. And we\u2019ve been fighting the transnational companies that have been extracting our wealth,\u201d evaluates.<\/p>\n

Bechara points out that \u201cthe center of the class struggle today is the ideological struggle, with the central points being the non-amnesty for those who tried to carry out a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Brazil, as well as planning the assassinations of President Lula, Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes; the end of the 6\u00d71 scale; and tax reform and the taxation of large fortunes\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alessandro Mariano, looking at the Lula government and the challenges posed by the current political moment, points out that a \u201cdismantling of public policies for the peoples of the countryside, waters and forests\u201d is underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
The fourth edition of the Seminar is held at the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), in Guararema (SP). Photo: Maria de Quadros.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cToday we have a Congress that holds 51% of the Union\u2019s budget, determined by the deputies where it is spent. The MDA has 80% less budget when compared to the period before the 2016 coup\u201d, explains.<\/p>\n

For him, \u201cwhat we are building here has been historic and that is why we will continue to promote processes of self-organization through the public policies already underway for the LGBTQIA+ population of the countryside, waters and forests, so that the experience of full citizenship is an achievement for all people,\u201d concluded.<\/p>\n

Via Campesina<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Via Campesina is an international organization that contributes to aligning a set of struggles with peasants, agricultural workers, rural women and indigenous and black communities in Asia, Africa, America and Europe, of which the Landless Rural Workers\u2019 Movement (MST) is a member.<\/p>\n

One of Via Campesina\u2019s main strategic actions is the defense of food sovereignty, as the right of peoples to decide on their own agricultural and food policy. This includes: prioritizing the production of healthy, good quality and culturally appropriate food for the domestic market. It is therefore essential to maintain a diversified peasant production system (biodiversity, respect for the productive capacity of the land, cultural value, preservation of natural assets).<\/p>\n

In Brazil, these struggles have taken shape in the strategies of various social movements and organizations, such as the MST, and other organizations such as: Small Farmers\u2019 Movement (MPA), Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining (MAM), Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), Peasant Women\u2019s Movement (MMC), Rural Youth Pastoral (PJR), National Coordination of the Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), among other popular organizations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

*Edited by Pamela Oliveira<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

O post LGBTI+ members of Via Campesina point out the main challenges in defending the \u201cbody-territory\u201d<\/a> apareceu primeiro em MST<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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