Reading the Past and the Present, Imagining (and living) the Future: The Practice of Mystic in Social Movements

Opposite to the so-called revolutionary strategy in two steps (first, to take the power -it means, the State-; and, second, to change the world), social movements propose a process of social change from here-and-now, taking their experiences and practices as an advance of the new society to be built. In this scenario, we aim to analyse the role of the mystic as symbolical mediation between the past-the present where social movements come from, and the present-the future they try to configure. The mystic is one of the most particular characteristics of the Brazilian Landless Social Movement (MST) that has been extended to many other social movements, both in Latin America and worldly, and we will analyse it through the discourses on it. It is considered as an undefinable notion that mixes ethics, aesthetics, subjectivity, identity, feelings, emotions and ideas, and takes place through many artistic forms (dance, music, theatre, poetry, etc). A really transdimensional and complex practice that articulates the symbolical, emotional, thinking, communicative and socialising dimensions, the mystic offers an analytical scenario for understanding this creative temporal tension between past-present and present-future. Given its particular symbolical and emotional dimension, the mystic plays a core role in the process of creation, articulation and -what is more important- “imagination” of projects and visions of future, from a past-and-present based approach, and in the (emotional) mobilisation of individuals around those purposes and the unity for making it real. Finally, we aim to discuss how the mystic's special articulation between emotions and reasons, feelings and ideas, sensibility and reflexion -broking traditional divides- becomes a central mediation (Barbero) in understanding the process of re-invention of new practices proposed by social movements.