Editing Landless Workers' Movement (section)

=== Liberation Theology and ''Mística'' ===
As mentioned above, the MST draws ideological inspiration from many conceptual frameworks, both religious and political, with one aspect of this inspiration being the practice of ''mística.'' Mística refers to performance or dance conducted in ceremony-like conditions, often with nonverbal components, and carried out with the intention of affirming confidence in desired goals or action.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Mistica, meaning and popular education in the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement {{!}} Popular Education South Africa |url=https://www.populareducation.org.za/content/mistica-meaning-and-popular-education-brazilian-landless-workers-movement |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=www.populareducation.org.za}}</ref> With this in mind, mística can be considered a form of [[mysticism]] that exists within a distinctly Latin American context.<ref name=":02" /> With regards to the MST, this form of mística underwent a series of changes prior to becoming fully adopted by the organisation as part of its methods and practices. [[Christian mysticism]] is often an individual experience, rather than collective and communal, and consequently, the form of mística practiced by the MST differs chiefly in this regard. It is a communal experience (often linked keenly with the emergence of [[Basic ecclesial community|CEBs]]) that often sees participation from the assembled group, rather than an individual, and this change was brought about by the influence of liberation theology on the MST in the late sixties.<ref name=":02" />

Additionally, as historian Daniela Issa notes, mística is a process by which communities associated with the MST can narrate their own history by reviving a collective memory of the oppressed, often in contexts where censorship and state violence are commonplace.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Issa |first=Daniela |date=2007 |title=Praxis of Empowerment: Mística and Mobilization in Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27648014 |journal=Latin American Perspectives |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=124–138 |doi=10.1177/0094582X06298745 |jstor=27648014 |s2cid=143217568 |issn=0094-582X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The form of mística associated with the MST also draws on a variety of cultures and origins, with roots in Catholic ritualism, as well as [[Afro-Brazilians|Afro-Brazilian]] religious practices that had first been introduced after the migration of slavery into Brazil in the 16th century. Not only this, but some contemporary historians have also identified aspects of the MST mística as having originated from Indigenous practices and belief systems.<ref name=":1" /> One example of recent demonstrations of mística within the MST is found in the practices of the ceremony at the ten year anniversary of the [[Eldorado do Carajás massacre]]. Members engaging in mística carried effigies of the bodies, while singing and chanting, as they converged on a location that symbolised the site of the event.<ref name=":1" />

The MST highly value education, and the organisation is committed to the teachings of Freirian pedagogy, which espouses the process of [[Conscientization|conscientisation]]. This commitment to community education forms another aspect of the group's mixture of influences. Popular education and liberation theology are closely linked with the practice of mística within the MST, as CEB's, and the sense of community generated by popular education often form the site of mística—with many members having overlapping interests and participation in each aspect.<ref name=":02" /> Such settlements and communities produced by the encampments of the MST actively encourage and sponsor the practice of mística within CEB's present, as a method of reaffirming commitment and dedication to the goals of the group, these goals often being exclusively linked to the political ambitions and campaigns at the time of practice.<ref name=":02" />