Framing the Intersectional Representation of the Landless Workers’ Movement on Instagram

Abstract

The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) is a grassroots organization influenced by Marxism, which has attracted national and international attention for its strategies for the occupation and redistribution of land in Brazil. In recent years, the MST has enacted a form of political mobilization that goes beyond traditional class struggles centered on the peasantry. Social media is one means employed by the MST for triggering political mobilization, and it provides a compilation of representative claims by the movement. This study applies framing analysis to the movement’s Instagram posts to decode the intersections of issues relating to land justice, agroecology, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. It argues that the MST has been formulating and benefiting from new and much-needed forms of reinterpretation of land inequality in Brazil without fundamentally changing its political ideology.