Peasants Against Globalization

"The author argues that the experience of rural activism in Costa Rica in the 1980s and 1990s calls into question much current theory about collective action, peasantries, development, and ethnographic research. The book invites the reader to rethink debates about old and new social movements, to grapple with the ethical and methodological dilemmas of engaged ethnography, to retrace the long history of development ignored by its postmodernist critics, and to come face-to-face with peasants stubbornly committed to survival."--BOOK JACKET.

In 2007, for the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s population lived in cities. However, on a global scale, poverty overwhelmingly retains a rural face. This book assembles an unparalleled group of internationally-eminent scholars in the field of rural development and social change in order to explore historical and contemporary processes of agrarian change and transformation and their consequent impact upon the livelihoods, poverty and well-being of those who live in the countryside. The book provides a critical analysis of the extent to which rural development trajectories have in the past and are now promoting a change in rural production processes, the accumulation of rural resources, and shifts in rural politics, and the implications of such trajectories for peasant livelihoods and rural workers in an era of globalization. Peasants and Globalization thus explores continuity and change in the debate on the ‘agrarian question’, from its early formulation in the late 19th century to the continuing relevance it has in our times, including chapters from Terence Byres, Amiya Bagchi, Ellen Wood, Farshad Araghi, Henry Bernstein, Saturnino M Borras, Ray Kiely, Michael Watts and Philip McMichael. Collectively, the contributors argue that neoliberal social and economic policies have, in deepening the market imperative governing the contemporary world food system, not only failed to tackle to underlying causes of rural poverty but have indeed deepened the agrarian crisis currently confronting the livelihoods of peasant farmers and rural workers. This crisis does not go unchallenged, as rural social movements have emerged, for the first time, on a transnational scale. Confronting development policies that are unable to reduce, let alone eliminate, rural poverty, transnational rural social movements are attempting to construct a more just future for the world’s farmers and rural workers.

La Via Campesina is one of the world s largest and most important transnational social movements. Formed in 1993, it brings together rural women, peasants, indigenous communities, small-scale farmers and farm workers from around the world. Comprising millions of people, it is a leading force against the globalization of a neoliberal and corporate-led model of agriculture.// This book explores the movement from the inside. Annette Aurelie Desmarais, a former grain farmer and long time participant in La Via Campesina shows how peasants and small-scale farmers have found the strength to challenge multinational agribusiness corporations and international institutions whose power and influence increasingly dictate government policy. This book accompanies La Via Campesina in a struggle to keep people on the land, producing food and culture, and building viable communities.// Annette Aurelie Desmarais was a grain farmer for 13 years, during which time she was an active member of La Via Campesina. She is now Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice Studies at the University of Regina, Canada.

La Via Campesina is one of the world's largest and most important transnational social movements. Formed in 1993, it brings together rural women, peasants, indigenous communities, small-scale farmers and farm workers from around the world. Comprising millions of people, it is a leading force against the globalization of a neo-liberal and corporate-led model of agriculture. This book explores the movement from the inside. Annette Aurelie Desmarais, a former grain farmer and long time participant in La Via Campesina shows how peasants and small-scale farmers have found the strength to challenge multinational agribusiness corporations and international institutions whose power and influence increasingly dictate government policy. This book accompanies La Via Campesina in a struggle to keep people on the land, producing food and culture, and building viable communities.

The essays in this collection examine agrarian transformation in Latin America and the role in this of peasants, with particular reference to Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Central America. Among the issues covered are the impact of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies on peasant economy and rural labour, the historical and contemporary nature of peasant/state relations, debates over Amazonian peasantries, forms taken by local/regional/national peasant ideology/agency, and political disputes over agrarian reform. Land still remains on the agenda of most Latin American peasants, who continue to be politically active, not just in Chiapas (Mexico), nor in ways stipulated by post-modern, post-colonial and post-development theory.

"Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century analyzes the emergence and consolidation of dynamic transnational agrarian social movements that seek to remake rural society and the world's food and agriculture systems."--

Readers of this book will encounter peasants and farmers whostruggle at home and traverse national borders to challenge theWorld Trade Organization and other powerful global institutions. Studies the activists in Brazil who uproot plots of geneticallymodified soybeans, forest dwellers in Indonesia who chop downrubber plantations to cultivate rice to feed their families,‘runaway villages’ in China that take up arms to resistcorrupt officials, and Mexican migrants who, having exited indesperation, return from abroad to transform their communities Little-known transnational agrarian movements of the earlytwentieth century share the stage with more recent, high-profileglobal alliances, such as Vía Campesina Celebrates a dynamic sector of international civil society, andtackles the thorny questions of successes and failures, ethical andpolitical dilemmas, troubled alliances with NGOs, protestrepertoires, and representation claims Analyzes contemporary collective action in all its complexity,acknowledging ambiguities and contradictions, posing challengingquestions, and providing concrete strategies for scholars andactivists

Peasants and the Art of Farming: A Chayanovian Manifesto focuses on the structure and dynamics of peasant farms and the historically highly variable relations that govern the processes of labour and production within peasant farms. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg argues that peasant agriculture can play an important, if not central, role in augmenting food production and creating sustainability. However, peasants today, as in the past, are materially neglected. By building on the pioneering work of Chayanov, this book seeks to address this neglect and to show how important peasants are in the ongoing struggles for food, food sustainability and food sovereignty. Full Text - Short description/annotation (Text)