Alex Flynn

Mística, myself and I: Beyond cultural politics in Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement:

How do grassroots social movements respond to shifting perceptions within their bases on key issues? This article centres its analysis on the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST – Landless Rural Workers’ Movement) and instances of the movement’s cultural activity, in particular, mística. It is recognised that the MST’s cultural activity reflects a deep engagement with cultural politics, and further, that the movement’s culture sector contributes directly to the delineation and formation of the ‘landless’ identity. However, from an ethnographic perspective and privileging the experiences of the members of the movement, this article goes beyond cultural politics to suggest that shifting notions of individualism, in the context of the movement’s cultural activity, are having an impact on MST artistic expression and members’ daily lives. The article argues that from within the bases of the movement, there has been a shift from what can be termed a receptive individualism, where members internalise cultural activity, to an expressive individualism, where members actively seek to shape the movement’s cultural programmes. Members speak of a lack of visceral energy that the culture sector’s activities used to possess, which provides the impetus for the article’s concluding remarks on how social movements respond to transformation more widely.

Whiter shades of pale: "Coloring in" Machado de Assis and race in contemporary Brazil

Debates surrounding race in Brazil have become increasingly fraught in recent years as the once hegemonic concept of racial democracy (democracia racial) continues to be subject to an ever more agnostic scrutiny. Parallel to these debates, and yet ultimately inseparable from them, is the question of what it is to be “white.” In this interdisciplinary paper, we argue that whiteness has become increasingly established in Brazilian public discourse as a naturalized category. Seeking a fresh perspective on what we perceive to have become a sterile debate, we examine Machado de Assis and his work to illustrate how assumptions surrounding his short story “Pai contra mãe,” and indeed comments on the author’s very body, reveal the extent to which whiteness has come to be seen as nonnegotiable and fixed. Placing a close reading of Machado’s text at the heart of the article, we explain its implications for the scholarly debates now unfolding in Brazil concerning the construction of whiteness. The article then develops an anthropological reading of whiteness by pointing to the inherent differences between perspectives of race as a process and perspectives of race as a fixed and naturalized given.

Transformation and ‘Human Values’ in the Landless Workers' Movement of Brazil

ABSTRACT Social movements often seek transformation in wider society, but they are also themselves subject to the fluidity and ephemerality of the environments in which they operate. Academic literature has long held the view that social movements inevitably come to be beset by institutionalisation and a loss of relevance, and in Brazil, where socio-economic change has been so dynamic, the future of the Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST)) has been called into question. This article argues that the MST is responding to changes in its membership, and transformation more widely in Brazil, in a measured way, by drawing upon a familiar repertoire of cooperativisation to boost production. The article suggests that decline is not necessarily certain, but as a case study for movements more generally, current MST leadership decisions may be significant in understanding how social movements can best react to unpredictable transformations in wider society.

Reflecting on Political Performance: Introducing Critical Perspectives

Rural Santa Catarina in sub-tropical South Brazil, and Mulheim, a pleasant German city in the post-industrial Ruhr valley. As editors, our field sites are strikingly different and hard to imagine side by side. In Brazil, you arrive along a dusty track to huge concrete gymnasia where state meetings of Latin America’s largest social movement, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) take place. Cows stand idly in pens in adjacent fields. Coaches that have transported hundreds of people to the meeting line up in parking lots nearby. Sentries bar the gates and word of mouth communication from a leader is required before they allow you to pass. A brief exchange and they either swing open the broad wooden gates or they turn you back. Once beyond the perimeter, in this rural location outside a small town in the Brazilian interior, the meeting itself is abuzz with energy, people going hither and thither, camping down on a concrete floor in a mixture of tents, old mattresses, and dusty blankets. The meeting will last four days and there is excitement and anticipation about the programme, of which a key part will be the dramatic performances, the mistica. Images line the main hall. Sebastiao Salgado’s series on the Landless Workers’ Movement has pride of place, hasty photocopies of his work strung out down the full length of one wall.

Organ-specific SPECT activity calibration using 3D printed phantoms for molecular radiotherapy dosimetry

BackgroundPatient-specific absorbed dose calculations for molecular radiotherapy require accurate activity quantification. This is commonly derived from Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) imaging using a calibration factor relating detected counts to known activity in a phantom insert.MethodsA series of phantom inserts, based on the mathematical models underlying many clinical dosimetry calculations, have been produced using 3D printing techniques. SPECT/CT data for the phantom inserts has been used to calculate new organ-specific calibration factors for 99mTc and 177Lu. The measured calibration factors are compared to predicted values from calculations using a Gaussian kernel.ResultsMeasured SPECT calibration factors for 3D printed organs display a clear dependence on organ shape for 99mTc and 177Lu. The observed variation in calibration factor is reproduced using Gaussian kernel-based calculation over two orders of magnitude change in insert volume for 99mTc and 177Lu. These new organ-specific calibration factors show a 24, 11 and 8 % reduction in absorbed dose for the liver, spleen and kidneys, respectively.ConclusionsNon-spherical calibration factors from 3D printed phantom inserts can significantly improve the accuracy of whole organ activity quantification for molecular radiotherapy, providing a crucial step towards individualised activity quantification and patient-specific dosimetry. 3D printed inserts are found to provide a cost effective and efficient way for clinical centres to access more realistic phantom data.

Re-imagining Political Subjectivities: Relationality, Reflexivity, and Performance in Rural Brazil

I’m at the annual state meeting of the largest social movement in Latin America.1 A lot of people have come from all over Santa Catarina, Brazil, seeking to be re-energised, to plan movement strategy with the leadership, or just to catch up with old comrades. A lot of people, a lot of conversations; the chimarrao,2 the images of the movement posted up on the walls of the hall, the ribbons, flags, a sea of people dressed in the revolutionary red of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) sit expectantly in front of the stage. We’re seated in rows of chairs facing a raised platform which has been constructed at the end of the hall. On this platform is a long table with five chairs, a public address system, a mixing desk, and a couple of microphone stands. Suspended on the wall behind the stage is an enormous MST flag, and beside it, an even larger Brazilian flag, at least four metres by three. On the front of the platform are suspended smaller flags; the flags of other movements with which the MST are in solidarity, such as the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST). In front of this platform, before the first row of chairs, is a space left clear. As the hall is entirely full of seating, it is evident that this space has been left empty for a purpose.