{"product_id":"pathways-to-utopia-time-and-transformation-in-the-landless-workers-movement-of-brazil-hardback-9780253073747","title":"Pathways to Utopia; Time and Transformation in the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (Hardback) 9780253073747","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003ePathways to Utopia\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eTime and Transformation in the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eAlex Ungprateeb Flynn (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780253073747\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 1 August 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e260 pages, 19 b\u0026amp;w illus., 2 maps\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.476 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003ePathways to Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e is an eloquently written account of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), a group who contest what it means to be landless within a utopian framework. Through sensitive ethnography and remarkable theoretical nous, Flynn foregrounds how social justice is a life-long commitment best viewed through the lens of endurance rather rupture and slowness over eventedness. A Bergsonian prism of 'duration' upends commonly held assumptions about activism as reducible to dramatic moments of schism, providing a truly unique contribution to both the study of time and social movements. Foregrounding aesthetic registers of protest facilitates a critique of umbilical thinking that is based on linear cause and effect; instead, the utopian future is a complex dance of ever-shifting horizons, continuously invigorated by spatial, temporal, and corporeal relations. The outcome is a durational activism that is counter-utopian, where transformation twists pasts, presents, and futures into a topological knot of perpetual becoming.\" - Daniel M. Knight, co-editor of \u003ci\u003ePorous Becomings: Anthropological Engagements with Michel Serres\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Beautifully written . . . Flynn's love for the people and the places and the cause shines through. His writing style and long-standing commitment together make this an extremely compelling read.\" - Wendy Wolford, author of\u003ci\u003e This Land Is Ours Now: Social Mobilization and the Meanings of Land in Brazil\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Formally innovative, yet grounded in the lived experience of grassroots participants in one of the most important social movements in the hemisphere, this is a book we desperately need today. Flynn reveals the vital interplay of political organization with the dissident action of those who craft lives of meaningful struggle in land occupations.\" - Maple Razsa, author of \u003ci\u003eBastards of Utopia: Living Radical Politics after Socialism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Flynn's book has the rare quality of combining rigorous scholarship with literary writing to exquisitely analyze how the longest social movement has been imagining an alternative collective future for the past 40 years.\" - Eduardo Dullo, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"With its vibrant detail and analytical clarity, this book gives us the tools to understand how long-term social and political change occurs from below through the creation of conflict and contradiction. Anyone interested in understanding social change - and how it might be achieved - should study this book.\" - Marianne Maeckelbergh, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalisation Movement is Changing the Face of Democracy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePathways to Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e explores how Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST), against all odds, has endured for forty years as one of the world's largest social movements - while transforming the way we understand the temporality of activism. Taking his cue from MST members and their generational struggle for land and justice, anthropologist Alex Ungprateeb Flynn reveals how the movement's longevity stems not only from its strong organization and collective vision but also from the productive tensions between established utopian ideals and emerging counter-utopian practices. Perceived by some as a shortcoming, this friction has proven to be a generative force, sparking creative gestures that reimagine social relations and ensuring the MST's adaptability in an ever-changing political landscape.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFlynn chronicles the everyday lives of families navigating an extraordinary political reality over a fifteen-year period. At the heart of \u003ci\u003ePathways to Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e is the realization that activism is not a momentary act but an ongoing, relational practice - one where even the smallest community actions reverberate, reshaping the very structures through which people seek to change the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvocatively written and balancing careful ethnography with key theoretical interventions, the book illuminates the dreams and sacrifices that characterize a life lived as struggle. Unfolding across multiple points of time, \u003ci\u003ePathways to Utopia\u003c\/i\u003e tells a story of hope and resilience - one that promises a lasting influence on our twenty-first-century political imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Dramatis Personae\u003cbr\u003e Introduction\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eScene I – Promise\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ePausa\u003cbr\u003e 1. Landlessness\u003cbr\u003e Pausa\u003cbr\u003e 2. Willed Transformation\u003cbr\u003e 3. Productivity\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eScene II – Contradictions\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ePausa\u003cbr\u003e 4. Human Values\u003cbr\u003e 5. Time\u003cbr\u003e Pausa\u003cbr\u003e 6. Encampment\u003cbr\u003e Pausa\u003cbr\u003e 7. Institutionalization\u003cbr\u003e 8. Ruin\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eScene III – Expression, Creative Gesture\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e9. The Culture Sector\u003cbr\u003e 10. Mística, Light on Your Feet\u003cbr\u003e 11. Occupy, Hold Firm\u003cbr\u003e Pausa\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eScene IV – Transformation\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e12. Remaking the Movement from Within\u003cbr\u003e Pausa\u003cbr\u003e 13. Community, Small Spaces\u003cbr\u003e 14. Victory, In a Heartbeat\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e Glossary\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Indiana University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52525707919640,"sku":"9780253073747","price":55.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/pathways-to-utopia-time-and-transformation-in-the-landless-workers-movement-of-brazil-hardback-9780253073747","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}