Institutionalizing economies of opposition: explaining and evaluating the success of the MST's cooperatives and agroecological repeasantization.

Dominant conceptions of social movements consider their constitutive feature thedisruptionof order, not practices aroundbuildingit. In this paper, I challenge this notion by analyzing the Landless Workers' Movement (MST)'s relatively successful efforts toinstitutionalizethe practices of agricultural production developed by its members in cooperatives and agroecology. Through this analysis, I show that the movement's administration of a democratically managed form of agricultural production exemplifies a unique form of social movement resistance – namely, what I callself-governmentalresistance.Rather than reformist or revolutionary contention, self-governmental resistance – performed by movements like the MST –redevelopsstate policies by vying for and often taking control over the design and implementation of agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]