Showing papers in "The Journal of Peasant Studies in 2023"
TL;DR: In this article , the authors analyze how gender equality and feminism have gained momentum within the movement, and how the work on gender issues configures a feminist politics and praxis at the global level.
Abstract: ABSTRACT Expanding and defending women’s rights and eradicating women’s oppression have become key to La Via Campesina and its conceptualization and practice of food sovereignty. In this paper, we analyze how gender equality and feminism have gained momentum within the movement, and how the work on gender issues configures a feminist politics and praxis at the global level. As LVC celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, we examine what difference women’s decades-long struggles have made within the movement, especially since 1996, and how these have shaped the movement’s politics, both organizationally and politically. We argue that women’s activism has contributed to radicalizing food sovereignty with a feminist perspective.
5 citations
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TL;DR: In Remaindered Life as mentioned in this paper , Neferti X. M. Tadiar offers a new conceptual vocabulary and framework for rethinking the dynamics of a global capitalism maintained through permanent imperial war.
Abstract: In Remaindered Life Neferti X. M. Tadiar offers a new conceptual vocabulary and framework for rethinking the dynamics of a global capitalism maintained through permanent imperial war. Tracking how contemporary capitalist accumulation depends on producing life-times of disposability, Tadiar focuses on what she terms remaindered life—practices of living that exceed the distinction between life worth living and life worth expending. Through this heuristic, Tadiar reinterprets the global significance and genealogy of the surplus life-making practices of migrant domestic and service workers, refugees fleeing wars and environmental disasters, criminalized communities, urban slum dwellers, and dispossessed Indigenous people. She also examines artists and filmmakers in the Global South who render forms of various living in the midst of disposability. Retelling the story of globalization from the side of those who reach beyond dominant protocols of living, Tadiar demonstrates how attending to remaindered life can open up another horizon of possibility for a radical remaking of our present global mode of life.
5 citations
TL;DR: Critical agrarian studies have three actual and aspirational interlocking features which together connect the worlds of academic research and practical politics: it is politically engaged, pluralist and internationalist as discussed by the authors .
Abstract: ABSTRACT Critical Agrarian Studies has three actual and aspirational interlocking features which together connect the worlds of academic research and practical politics: it is politically engaged, pluralist and internationalist. These features also defined the older generation of agrarian studies that gave birth to the Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) 50 years ago, in 1973. 1 Within a decade or so of the journal's inauguration, the agrarian world had been transformed radically amid neoliberal globalization. An altered world did not render agrarian studies less relevant; on the contrary, it has become even more so, but within a different context in which political engagement, pluralism and internationalism develop new meanings and manifest in new ways.
5 citations
TL;DR: The emergence of food sovereignty, the struggles of agrarian feminists for gender parity, the recognition of women's work, and agro-ecology as sites for the generation of knowledge needed for justice, food systems transformation and the restoration of rural environments are discussed in this paper .
Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper offers a scholar/activist's reflections on some key conceptual and political articulations shaping current food systems analysis to illustrate that crucial knowledge about food systems and social transformation is generated in a variety of sites and ways. Drawing on personal experiences as one of the initial leaders in the global movement, La Via Campesina, the author explores the emergence of food sovereignty, the struggles of agrarian feminists for gender parity, the recognition of women's work, and agro-ecology as sites for the generation of knowledge needed for justice, food systems transformation and the restoration of rural environments.
4 citations
TL;DR: The La Via Campesina movement as discussed by the authors has become one of the world's most influential transnational movement organizations and has kickstarted political projects that led to the formation of wider movements, such as food sovereignty and its accompanying mass movement.
Abstract: ABSTRACT La Via Campesina was born in the process of fierce struggles by rural working classes – poor peasants, smallholder farmers, landless farmworkers, artisanal fishers, and small pastoralists – against neoliberal global capitalism. Since its establishment three decades ago, it has become one of the world’s most influential transnational movement organizations. It has kickstarted political projects that led to the formation of wider movements, such as food sovereignty and its accompanying mass movement. In this paper, Paul Nicholson reflects on the key achievements by and challenges of La Via Campesina.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , Coulibaly sheds light on these issues through the situation in Mali and the whole West African region, including the situation of security meltdown, the persistence of kleptocratic states and elites, and the lasting impacts of colonialism.
Abstract: ABSTRACT Contemporary peasant movements in West Africa have their roots in local, national, and international activism dating back to the 1970s. Born in the context of structural adjustment and democratic transitions, today’s organizations are critical actors in representing the interests of the region’s peasants. Yet, today, they face numerous challenges, including the region’s security meltdown, the persistence of kleptocratic states and elites, and the lasting impacts of colonialism. In this interview, Ibrahima Coulibaly sheds light on these issues through the situation in Mali and the whole West African region.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the new General Coordinator of La Via Campesina International discusses her vision for rural movements, including land reform, climate politics, perils and potential of state policies, rising populism, and the power of the peasantry.
Abstract: ABSTRACT A new generation of activists and peasant leaders have taken up the banner of food sovereignty amid an even more challenging and violent situation for rural people around the world. In this interview Morgan Ody, the new General Coordinator of La Via Campesina International, discusses her vision for rural movements. Originally from a small dairy farm, Ody is a second-generation militant in Confédéracion Paysanne. Ody speaks about land reform, climate politics, the perils and potential of state policies, rising populism, and the power of the peasantry: in short, about where the movement has been and where we are headed.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors reframes resilience as a process produced within socio-environmental conflicts, placing contestation and negotiation in the centre frame, by re-signifying the meanings and practices of resilience, Indigenous agrarian struggles contribute to eroding capitalism and its entwinement with climate change.
Abstract: Resilience to climate change demands a transformation in social and political relations, but the literature has largely neglected how these are embedded within legacies of conflict. We explore the roles socioenvironmental conflicts play in the scaling up of transformation amidst ongoing settler colonial projects in Indigenous territories in Nicaragua. Drawing on insights from resilience, climate change, and critical agrarian studies, this article reframes resilience as a process produced within socioenvironmental conflicts, placing contestation and negotiation in the centre frame. By re-signifying the meanings and practices of resilience, Indigenous agrarian struggles contribute to ‘eroding capitalism’ and its entwinement with climate change.
2 citations
TL;DR: Rodríguez is one of the founders of both LVC and one of its regional expressions, the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC), as well as of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), in Chile as discussed by the authors .
Abstract: ABSTRACT Since the 1990s, La Vía Campesina (LVC) has become one of the most important transnational movements in the world. Francisca ‘Pancha’ Rodríguez is one of the founders of both LVC and one of its regional expressions, the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC), as well as of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI), in Chile. In this article, she tells us about these movements’ history and challenges, especially for peasant women and youth.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors argue that attributing migration to climate change misreads coastal vulnerabilities and the importance of migration as a gendered livelihood strategy to deal with rural precarity and debt- both in the past and present.
Abstract: Climate reductive translations of migration attract international attention, but result in three problematic misreadings of Bangladesh’s socioecological landscape. First, attributing migration to climate change misreads coastal vulnerabilities and the importance of migration as a gendered livelihood strategy to deal with rural precarity and debt- both in the past and present. Second, misreading migration caused by brackish tiger-prawn cultivation, infrastructure-related waterlogging and riverbank erosion as ‘climate-induced’ hinders a discussion of long-term solutions for rural underemployment, salinisation, siltation and land loss. Lastly, framing climate change as causing ‘gendered displacement’ ignores the importance of affective kinship migration in shaping single women’s migration choices.
2 citations
TL;DR: The 50th anniversary of the Journal of Progressive Studies (JPS) was celebrated by the editors of JPS as mentioned in this paper , who invited more research, vigorous debate, and scholar-activism on agrarian politics and beyond.
Abstract: ABSTRACT The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work of ending colonialism run square through questions of land. The classical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a new intensity. We look at four dimensions of the agrarian question today: urbanization and labor; care and social reproduction; financialization and global food systems; and social movements. On this 50th anniversary of JPS, we as the journal's editors invite more research, vigorous debate, and scholar-activism on these issues in agrarian politics and beyond. We move into the journal’s next era hoping we might continue to better interpret the world in order to change it..
TL;DR: In this article , the authors train their critical gaze on accounting itself, its epistemic foundations, instruments, and narratives, and their implications for agrarian livelihoods and relations.
Abstract: This article seeks to stimulate analysis of how accounting knowledge, techniques, and practices work to incorporate agriculture and land use into climate mitigation. Accounting plays a significant role in the ways that capitalism inserts itself into, reworks, or reorganises agrarian webs of life. To study these processes, we train our critical gaze on accounting itself – its epistemic foundations, instruments, and narratives, and their implications for agrarian livelihoods and relations. Through the notion of “agrarian counter-accounts,” we conclude by considering the potential of alternative methodologies and understandings of account-giving, taking, and holding in struggles for agrarian climate justice.
TL;DR: The authors examines the global agrarian question as implicated in, and implicating, the current conjuncture of crises by historicizing them, where the past permeates a present, now challenged by a problematic future.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This essay examines the global agrarian question as implicated in, and implicating, the current conjuncture of crises by historicizing them – where the past permeates a present, now challenged by a problematic future. I suggest a methodological approach connecting these morbid symptoms to inform a critical agrarian studies, especially insofar as the agrarian world is shaped by, and shapes, global capitalist and environmental relations.
TL;DR: In this article , the challenges and opportunities faced by critical agrarian scholars in and from the Global South are examined and three ways forward for enhancing solidarity through networks of scholar-activists: knowledge accessibility, cooperative organization, and co-production of knowledge.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper examines the challenges and opportunities faced by critical agrarian scholars in and from the Global South. We argue that despite the historical and structural limitations, the critical juncture of convergence of crises and renewed interest in agrarian political economies offers an opportunity for fostering a diverse research agenda that opens space for critical perspectives about, from and by the Global South, which is mostly absent in mainstream scholarship dominated by the Global North. We also propose doing so by enhancing solidarity to transform injustices within academia and other spaces of knowledge production and dissemination. To develop the argument, first, we reflect on the multiplicity of crises in rural areas and the changing character of social struggles, as well as the interlinkages between environmental crises and the re-emergence of critical agrarian studies that are reshaping the agrarian question. Then, we discuss the implications and conditions of the political agenda carried out by a scholar-activist movement working on agrarian studies from the Global South. Drawing on our experience as the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the South (CASAS), we conclude by proposing three ways forward for enhancing solidarity through networks of scholar-activists: knowledge accessibility, cooperative organization, and co-production of knowledge.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors argue that women, men, and gender-diverse people experience differently gendered and contextual manifestations of violence during environmental conflicts and that subverting hegemonic narratives can mitigate violence.
Abstract: Discussion of gendered violence during environmental conflicts often centers on women’s issues without situating them within broader discrimination affecting all people. This cross-regional analysis compares violence in 25 Southeast Asian environmental conflicts. In this paper, I argue that women, men, and gender-diverse people experience differently gendered and contextual manifestations of violence. Extractivist encroachment intensifies or introduces dynamics stratifying power unevenly across gender and other marginalities. Ensuing hegemonic gender violence is partly caused by rigid definitions of who can have a voice. Thus, subverting hegemonic narratives can mitigate violence.
TL;DR: Yoon Geum Soon as mentioned in this paper discusses the resistance to international trade regimes, organizing strategies rooted in women peasants' daily lives, and the history and trajectory of peasant movements in Korea.
Abstract: ABSTRACT This article is part of a series to document the voices and perspectives of La Via Campesina leaders for the 50th Anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies and the 30th Anniversary of La Via Campesina. Yoon Geum Soon reflects on Korean women peasant organizing from the local to international level. She discusses the resistance to international trade regimes, organizing strategies rooted in women peasants' daily lives, and the history and trajectory of peasant movements in Korea.
TL;DR: In this article , the importance of the La Via Campesina (LVC) is found not in the shrinking numerical size of farming populations or in agriculture's dwindling macroeconomic contributions to national economies, in relative terms, but in the political heft of what it represents in terms of an alternative future that is so different from the current agrarian world.
Abstract: ABSTRACT La Via Campesina has revalorized agrarian politics, transformed knowledge politics, and co-constructed the field of Critical Agrarian Studies. It has shown the important role of agrarian movements in anti-capitalist struggles and the radical reimagination and construction of a positive future. The significance of LVC is found not in the shrinking numerical size of farming populations or in agriculture’s dwindling macroeconomic contributions to national economies, in relative terms, but in the political heft of what it represents in terms of an alternative future that is so different from the current agrarian world.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors present a case study of a high-profile carbon forest sequestration project in Southwest China, which claims to achieve "triple-win" outcomes for livelihoods, biodiversity and climate change.
Abstract: This research presents a case study of a high-profile carbon forest sequestration project in Southwest China, which claims to achieve ‘triple-win’ outcomes for livelihoods, biodiversity and climate change. However, over the last 15 years, each household that participated in the project has only received 10–20 USD (about 0.67–1.33 USD annually), despite the requirement for farmers to convert their agricultural land into tree plantations. We argue that contemporary capitalism engaged in climate change mitigation efforts has effectively recast the rural governance of land from a territorial arrangement to multiple actors exerting control over carbon credit certification, which creates a new form of climate injustice and social exclusion in agrarian change.
TL;DR: In this article , sustainable livelihoods and resilience frameworks through a feminist lens and propose livelihoods reproduction to address some blind spots are presented. But they do so through a literature review and a case study of olive oil farms in Spain.
Abstract: The agrarian question dealing with peasants’ reproduction in adverse global conditions is a topic of deep debate closely linked to farm viability. Approaches that define viability in monetary terms cannot explain peasants’ way of farming. Holistic approaches can better analyse this question but existing frameworks leave aside aspects of reproduction. Here, we revise sustainable livelihoods and resilience frameworks through a feminist lens and propose livelihoods reproduction to address some blind spots. We do so through a literature review and a case study of olive oil farms in Spain. Our analysis highlights the importance of household labour distribution for farm viability.
TL;DR: In this article , the project of transformative constitutionalism implemented by the MAS government which aims to decolonize Bolivian society through constructing a ‘plurinational’ state is examined.
Abstract: This article critically examines the project of transformative constitutionalism implemented by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) government which aims to decolonize Bolivian society through constructing a ‘plurinational’ state. Based on ethnography of the political institutions of a rural indigenous community and their interaction with this new state, it argues that programs of constitutional reform are limited in their capacity to address colonial legacies. This is due to the incompatibility of the polyvalent character of postcolonial indigenous societies with the disposition of states and legal systems to bureaucratically re-order and simplify social life, even when ostensibly providing rights and recognitions to marginalized groups.
TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between Indigenous food sovereignty and the resurgence of Indigenous law through an examination of the Mi'kmaq concept of Netukulimk, focusing on insights coming out of We Story the Land, our documentary film about L'sɨtkuk youth and their mentors on a canoe journey to reclaim a series of ancient routes leaving from the reserve to cross their traditional territory.
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between Indigenous Food Sovereignty and the resurgence of Indigenous law through an examination of the Mi'kmaq concept of Netukulimk. We present a case study of L'sɨtkuk First Nation's exploration of the original spirit and intent of the eighteenth-century Peace and Friendship Treaties and their enactment of the Mi'kmaq always those treaties are anchored in, focusing on insights coming out of We Story the Land, our documentary film about L'sɨtkuk youth and their mentors on a canoe journey to reclaim a series of ancient routes leaving from the reserve to cross their traditional territory.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examine plantations' vast water conveyance ditch system as a means of understanding how infrastructure continues plantation logics into the present, considering both the physical ditches themselves as well as the laws and politics which support continued water extraction.
Abstract: Sugar plantations have fundamentally shaped water use in Maui, Hawai’i for over 100 years, with tremendous resulting impacts on ecosystems and Native Hawaiian communities. In this paper, we build on literature on the plantationocene and the political lives of infrastructure to examine plantation irrigation infrastructure. We center Maui’s vast water conveyance ditch system as a means of understanding how infrastructure continues plantation logics into the present, considering both the physical ditches themselves as well as the laws and politics which support continued water extraction. We also consider infrastructural futures, highlighting ongoing efforts of communities seeking water justice via infrastructural control.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on women landowners' land-title loans and show that land use is shifting from cultivation to financial pledging, and that women routinely exercise control over their lands vis-à-vis their command over intergenerational care practices.
Abstract: A common misconception about women landowners in Nepal is that they do not control the lands they own. In this paper, I focus on women landowners' land-title loans. What does women’s accrual of monetary debt in exchange for titles tell us about women’s control over land? And, what does women’s land debt tell us about the gender of financialization in the context of agrarian change? Based on ten months of ethnographic research in Saptari, Nepal, I show that land use is shifting from cultivation to financial pledging, and that women routinely exercise control over their lands vis-à-vis their command over intergenerational care practices, a process that I term the ‘indebtedness to care.’
TL;DR: This paper revisited the scholarship that helped produce a dominant critical assessment of hybrid seeds, situating its emergence in a series of events and interventions of the late twentieth century, and explored how the singular history of F1 hybrid corn inflected understandings of crop breeding and seed production in general, contributing to effective political mobilization against agroindustry as well as lasting confusion about the promises and pitfalls of distinct approaches to crop development and the nature of hybrid seed.
Abstract: ABSTRACT Since the 1970s ‘hybrid seeds’ have been linked to many perceived perils of industrialized agriculture. This essay revisits the scholarship that helped produce a dominant critical assessment of hybrid seeds, situating its emergence in a series of events and interventions of the late twentieth century. It explores how the singular history of F1 hybrid corn inflected understandings of crop breeding and seed production in general, contributing to effective political mobilization against agroindustry as well as lasting confusion about the promises and pitfalls of distinct approaches to crop development and the nature of hybrid seeds.
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examine the concept of monocrop in relation to processes of empire and conquest and the modernization of agriculture through the Green Revolution and beyond, and discuss how thinking against monocrops can help us imagine how to create a more inclusive, just and healthy world.
Abstract: ABSTRACT ‘Monocrops’ is a key concept needed to understand agrarian dynamics today. Strictly speaking, it means cultivation of a single crop in a transformed and simplified landscape. Broadly, it means the violent imposition of a pattern of power predicated upon the concentration of control over nature, labor, inputs, production, profits and knowledge, in the form of homogeneous, simplified landscapes. I examine the concept in relation to processes of empire and conquest and the modernization of agriculture through the Green Revolution and beyond. I discuss how thinking against monocrops can help us imagine how to create a more inclusive, just and healthy world.
TL;DR: The authors examines instances of agricultural knowledge production and exchange and suggests that beyond the profound influence of the US in the postwar food regime, the nuances and historical and regional specificity of agricultural scientists' life stories and individual technological imaginaries can "scale up" through the translation of agrarian knowledge.
Abstract: This paper answers calls from the food regime scholarship for a closer analysis of the implicit rules, transitions, and regional scales of food regimes. Drawing on archival materials from the Japanese colonial administration and Sino-American agricultural cooperation, interviews with key actors, and secondary sources, this paper examines instances of agricultural knowledge production and exchange. We suggest that beyond the profound influence of the US in the postwar food regime, the nuances and historical and regional specificity of agricultural scientists’ life stories and individual technological imaginaries can ‘scale up’ through the translation of agrarian knowledge.