Training in action? A study of the collective practices of the subjects of the movement of homeless workers (MTST)

Abstract

Social movements possess the potential to gather people around common demands, resulting in new practices by their constituents. In this context, education appears as extremely important as a direct claim and basic tool in the development of awareness inside organizations - in this case, particularly popular education. The object of this study is to observe learning, knowledge and identity production in non-formal spaces of education, specifically in MTST, taking as a starting point activists' perceptions collected in semi-structured interviews, as well as analyses of everyday practices and actions through an ethnographic study inside a settlement in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. Based on the literature on the area (specially Paulo Freire, Maria da Glória Gohn and Roseli Caldart), the study departs from the presupposition that in the daily praxis of an occupied settlement, participants transform themselves within the action itself, for this involvement generates learnings, construction of knowledge as well as the production of individual and group identities. Thus, it is the main interest of this study to understand how this process actually takes place by examining the narrative of their experiences. It aims at contributing to the debate on the emancipatory and transforming character of education in non-institutional environments. (AU)