The Politics of Transnational Peasant Struggle

Abstract

New waves of land grabbing are working to dispossess peasants in both the Global South and the Global North. But peasants are fighting back. They have come together to contest dispossession through place-based and transnational forms of activism. In so doing, they have articulated a demand for food sovereignty. They claim that a democratically organized food system in which smallholder producers produce their own food on their own territory can feed the world whilst cooling the planet.

This book explores practices of peasant resistance. Its aim is to show how grass roots peasant activists have been able to demand transnational social and political change. In the process, the book examines the grassroots forms of activism that enable peasants to reclaim land upon which to work and from which to live. It explores how diverse grass roots movements have been able to connect and unite in order to contest transnational dynamics of oppression. Moreover, it discusses how practices of peasant activism transform how we think, and ought to think, about human rights and global democracy. By also highlighting the problems that peasants continue to face, the book indicates that the future of sustainable peasant livelihoods depends on the will of global organizations and transnational society to not just listen to the voices of peasant activists, but to respond to them too.