Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to conduct a reflection on the different forms of political engagement in a Brazilian social movement, Movimento das Comunidades Populares – based on Alessandro Portelli’s work in oral history.

Paper long abstract:

"There are men who struggle for a day, and they are good. There are others who struggle for a year, and they are better. There are some who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives, and these are the indispensable ones." (Bertolt Brecht)

In his poem, Brecht considers the longevity of personal political commitment as criteria to evaluate the relevance of an activist. The lifetime devotion to political work is usually an indicator of the degree of involvement of a militant. However, the way individuals are embedded in social struggles is also differentiated. There is room for many forms of engagement in the Movimento das Comunidades Populares (MCP), an existing Brazilian Social Movement that emerged in 1969. But there is a nomenclature used by the activists themselves that highlights what would be Brecht's "indispensable ones": "the most interested fellows". According to Alessandro Portelli, there is a necessity to achieve a "crossing of subjectivities" through Oral History so as to identify and characterize a social group. Oral sources produced for the purposes of this research revealed issues that contribute to understand the meaning of political activism in the lives of many participants of MCP. From the analysis of these interviews, it's possible to identify common elements shared by those among them who can be considered "the most interested fellows", in other words, those who take militancy as a central part of their lives.