Promised Land

Madeleine Cousineau Adriance is Associate Professor of Sociology at Mount Ida College.

"Promised Land provides first-hand information about a situation where human rights are terribly violated, but which has not been brought to the attention of international media, or readers, or government and religious leaders. The brutal oppression of the peasants is atrocious. This story must be told."This book establishes the involvement of religious groups (the comunidades de base) in the movement for land reform and advocacy for human rights, and the manner in which the small communities operate. Some of the literature presents the basic Christian communities as dominated by a Marxist influence; some writers criticize them as simply a transition from religious motivation to political motivation. Adriance establishes that they are political movements motivated deeply by religious commitment. This is an important finding. The complicated relationship to the larger ecclesiastical establishment is very interesting and important. The small communities—explicitly Catholic—function effectively even in situations of opposition by some of the hierarchy." — Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, Fordham University

• List of Tables Map of the Region Foreword Preface List of Portuguese Terms List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Introduction: Religion and Rural Conflict Part I. The Context of Change 1. The Military Regime and Agrarian Policy Part II. Six Cases 2. Arame: The Town Named for Barbed Wire 3. São Luís: The Great Aluminum Disaster 4. Santa Rita: Where the Buffalo Roamed 5. Northern Tocantins: Blood in the Parrot's Beak 6. Rio Maria: Tragedy and Hope in the Land of Canaan 7. Bye-Bye Brazil: Along the Transamazonic Highway Reflections on the Case Studies Part III. Analysis 8. Help and Hindrance: The Institutional Church 9. Base Communities: Link between Religion and Agrarian Activism 10. CEBs, Rural Unions, and the Struggle for Land 11. Daughters of Judith: Women in the Land Struggle Part IV. Conclusion 12. Beyond the Amazon: Religion and Social Change Appendix: Gaining Access and Gathering Data Notes Bibliography Index