Transformative Justice in Practice: Reflections on the Pastoral Land Commission During Brazil’s Political Transition

Abstract

There has been a growing interest among transitional justice academics and practitioners in pursuing more transformative agendas for practice. There remain however few illustrations, if any, of work to deliver transformative justice in practice. This article considers the work of Brazil’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) during Brazil’s political transition as a potentially useful source of insights for practice. An organ of the Catholic Church and ecumenical in orientation, the CPT worked directly with marginalized communities to defend and promote the rights of small farmers and rural workers and peaceful solutions to land and labour conflicts. Its work was steered by a forward-looking vision of justice in which the violence, marginalization and exclusion of the past and present would be overcome by empowering rural populations to transform their social circumstances and address root causes. This article outlines the practices and activities through which the CPT sought to foster transformative change and reflects on what lessons these might hold for transformative justice in transitional settings.

Truth commissions in the established democracies of the Global North: Theoretical and practical perspectives

“…In recent years, in response to the growing criticisms regarding the omission of structural violence and the problematic inference that the harms become “resolved,” scholars have increasingly drawn on the peacebuilding and conflict transformation literature to urge that “transitional justice” be reconceptualized as “transformative justice” (e.g., Gready & Robins, 2014, 2019; Hoddy & Evans, 2020). 5 Lambourne (2009) argues, this entails rethinking: “our focus on ‘transition’ as an interim process that links the past and the future, and to think instead in terms of ‘transformation,’ which implies long‐term, sustainable processes embedded in society and adoption of psychosocial, political and economic, as well as legal, perspectives on justice” (p.30).…”

The Struggle for Land in the Eastern Amazon

“…While many peasants practice slash-and-burn agriculture because the INCRA and other public agencies have failed to invest in sustainable agriculture, the workers have made significant efforts to restore degraded areas and better use natural resources such as forests, streams, and rivers. In some of these settlements, the work of the CPT (see Poletto and Canuto, 2022; Hoddy, 2022) in partnership with the unions has helped to diversify production, especially with the implementation of small agroforestry systems, intercropping forest species with fruit species, and raising, among other things, bees, fish, chickens, pigs, and goats. These experiments—in the Canarana, Pecosa, Curral de Pedra, and São Domingos settlement projects (Conceição do Araguaia), Agropecus (Santa Maria das Barreiras), Piranheira/Praia Alta (Nova Ipixuna), and Porto Seguro and Pedro Laurindo (Marabá)—have contributed to development without putting pressure on the forest.…”

Sacrifização ambiental da Amazônia brasileira a partir do método DPSIR

“…As publicações anuais da Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT) sobre conflitos são correspondentes aos eixos relacionados aos direitos humanos, água e terra (HODDY, 2022). Os conflitos registrados pela CPT estão relacionados à presença de ameaças tecnológicas, a exemplo dos conflitos relacionados aos recursos hídricos, tendo como principal causa a presença de barragens.…”