Hammond, J.L. (2014) Mística, meaning and popular education in the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement. Interface: a journal for and about social movements 6(1): 372-391.
The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) works to create solidarity and collective identity among its members through a variety of pedagogical practices. One such practice is mística, which is at once a public, expressive dramatic performance and, drawing on Christian mysticism, an way of making contact with a transcendent reality. Mística draws on Christian theology generally, and specifically on the practices of the Christian base communities associated with liberation theology which were key in the emergence of the MST. It fortifies activists with the high commitment needed to engage in land occupations and the creation of farming communities through which the MST pursues its central goal of agrarian reform