The subversive practice of counting bodies: Documenting violence and conflict in rural Brazil

Abstract

Abstract This paper appraises Pastoral Land Commission's (CPT) practice of documenting the violence and conflict that has taken place in the Brazilian countryside since 1975. Based on 10 interviews with CPT National members and other primary sources, the paper conceptually explores the organisations' subversive practice of compiling and publishing data on this type of violence, hence producing emancipatory knowledge that supports progressive agrarian change. Although the state benefits from having such knowledge obscured, CPT's efforts shine a light on conflicts in the countryside and frame them as such. Documenting as a technology of resistance has been crucial for Brazilian social movements and scholar‐activists and has significant potential for reproduction elsewhere.