Fostering sustainability in Brazilian agrarian reform: insights from assentamentos and ecovillagesMain Menu0 | Executive Summary1 | Introduction2 | Research design and methods2.1 | Selecting our cases2.2 | Collecting the data2.3 | Analyzing the data2.4 | A Visual Story of Our Journey3 | Brazilian agrarian reform: historical developments3.1 | The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST)3.2 | Assentamentos: Rural Settlements of Brazilian Agrarian Reform3.3 | Public policies for agrarian reform in Brazil3.4 | Phases of an assentamento’s history: how does an agrarian reform settlement come to be?3.4.1 | Phases of Assentamento: Grassroot Engagement3.4.2 | Phases of Assentamento: Occupation and Encampment3.4.3 | Phases of Assentamento: Establishment3.4.4 | Phases of Assentamento: Maintenance3.5 | Ecovillages: a source of insights for sustainability in small rural communities3.6 | Synthesis: assentamentos and ecovillages side-by-side4 | Analyzing sustainability challenges in assentamentos4.1 | Moving towards sustainable production4.2 | Building infrastructure for sustainability4.3 | Creating attractive conditions for the youth5 | Two domains for the design of solutions to sustainability challenges in assentamentos5.1 | Access, use and dissemination of sustainability know-how5.2 | Enabling cooperative collective dynamics through conflict resolution6 | Insights to address sustainability in assentamentos6.1 | The power of example can be an effective means for the transition to more sustainable practices6.2 | Building a common vision among assentados can support the maintenance of cooperative collective dynamics6.3 | More room for experimentation can strengthen sustainability know-how6.4 | Collective initiatives can prevent isolation in rural communities by acting as touchpoints with the external world and bringing exchange opportunities for assentados7 | Closing RemarksLIST OF TEXTUAL REFERENCES (PAPERS. BOOKS, LEGISLATION)INTERVIEWS | Complete videosCOMMUNITIES | Materials availableAUTHORS | Basic InfoOndab86d8b9ff51cdbb9a292b5a3d9ea13e8fba7795a
We now intend to go one step further, deriving additional insights that can shed more light on the design of these policies and suggest potential avenues for action. The insights are also meant to provoke useful reflections for the actors mentioned above. We believe that this sort of output—made possible by the methods described in chapter 2— represents an adequate first approximation to devising solutions for a context exhibiting a high degree of wickedness (Rittel & Webber, 1974). When facing this sort of context, “the lack of certainty and the prevalence of ill-defined problems, set against the absence of concrete datasets to back up decision-making, calls for different, more creative and collaborative approaches.” (Siodmok, 2015). The insights we provide here are intended as examples of what these sorts of approaches can achieve, and as input for similar approaches undertaken by others in the future.