Landless Children on the Move for the Resistance of the Zé Maria do Tomé Encampment, CE

Abstract

This article analyzes the educational practices developed by the children of the Zé Maria do Tomé Settlement in Chapada do Apodi (Ceará state), from 2015 to 2019. Assuming that education is a social phenomenon that transcends formal teaching spaces, the study investigates how the actions, interactions, and knowledge collectively produced by the children during this period became powerful mechanisms of resistance and strengthening for the Zé Maria Settlement. This is a participant research with an ethnographic approach, which observed a group of 12 children over these four years. Within the historical period examined, the study found that the children, far from being mere spectators of the agrarian conflict and the struggle against agribusiness in the region, are active agents in the (re)production of the settlement's culture, memory, and values. It is concluded that their educational practices were fundamental to the construction of the collective's resistance, ensuring the perpetuation of the ideals of the struggle and reaffirming the role of childhood as a central historical subject in social movements.