Latin America is known for social movement organization andinnovation, and for dialog among differ... more Latin America is known for social movement organization andinnovation, and for dialog among different types of knowledge(‘ dialogo de saberes’ ). This has included dialog between aca-demic knowledges framed by Western science, popular andancestral ‘peoples’ knowledges and wisdoms,’ and so-called critical thought from global and Latin American revolutionarytraditions. From these conditions, we postulate thata specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged fromthese dynamics. While the global academy recognizes thatagroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Westernsense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent LatinAmerican version that is the most politically charged and popu-larly organized. This contribution uses a survey of selected LatinAmerican agroecologists to evaluate the extent to which sucha critical Latin American agroecology actually exists, and if so,what its characteristics are.
En los procesos territoriales de resistencia y transformación, los movimientos sociales del campo... more En los procesos territoriales de resistencia y transformación, los movimientos sociales del campo cada mas plantean la agroecología como elemento clave en una agricultura campesina ecológica, encaminado junto con la reforma agraria y la defensa de la tierra y el territorio a la construcción de la soberanía alimentaria en armonía con la Madre Tierra. Pero transformar una agricultura campesina – muchas veces atrapada en modelos tecnológicos derivados de la Revolución Verde (monocultivo, semillas comerciales, fertilizantes químicos, agrotóxicos, etc.) en una producción agroecológica, requiere procesos de formación humana, de la base campesina, además de procesos sociales que estimulan el intercambio, innovación y socialización horizontal de prácticas productivas alternativas.
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems Agroecology and La Via Campesina II. Peasant agroecology schools and the formation of a sociohistorical and political subject, 2019
Scaling up of peasant agroecology and building food sovereignty require major transformations tha... more Scaling up of peasant agroecology and building food sovereignty require major transformations that only a self-aware, critical, collective political subject can achieve. The global peasant movement, La Via Campesina (LVC) in its expression in Latin America, the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC), employs agroecology and political training or formation as a dispositive or device to facilitate the emergence of a sociohistorical and political subject, the “agroecological peasantry,” designed to be capable of transforming food systems across the globe. In this essay, we examine the pedagogical philosophies and practices used in the peasant agroecology schools and training processes of LVC and CLOC, and how they come together in territorial mediation as a dispositive for pedagogical-educational, agroecological reterritorialization.
This paper examines the relationship between agroecological scaling andthe agrarianquestion,based... more This paper examines the relationship between agroecological scaling andthe agrarianquestion,based on PuertoRico’s contradictoryagriculturalanddemographictendenciesintheaftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. We find that labor-based intensification, literally rebuilding and recovering the diversity of farms devastated by the hurricanes, is a necessary step toward scaling out agroecology in Puerto Rico. The rebuilding of farms requires bothamplemanuallaborandaccumulatedlocalknowledge,two elements which are difficult to bring together in Puerto Rico due to a complex interplay of historical and social factors. Decades of public policy based on the belief that the small farmer is not essential to Puerto Rico have produced a series of obstacles for farmers who wish to recover their farms. The peasant economy, a field of study that recognizes peasant farmers as capable subjects of their own historical resistance – within and against economies of empire – can be a powerful tool in the effort to recover local food systems and (re)create a vibrant small farmer sector. Here, we explore peasant balances, a capacity to aggregate daily farm management decisions into coherent, multifunctional economic strategies that allow for dynamic responses to changing environmental, social and market conditions, and how these balances relate to Puerto Rican coffee farmers’ capacity to stayonthelandandtransitiontowardagroecologicalproduction. Fieldwork included qualitative interviews with leaders of small farmers’ organizations, Puerto Rican government officials and farmers in the mountainous central region between August 2017 and March 2018.
This contribution traces the parallel development of two distinct approaches to peasant agroecolo... more This contribution traces the parallel development of two distinct approaches to peasant agroecological education: the peasant-to-peasant horizontal method that disseminated across Mesoamerica and the Caribbean beginning in the 1970s, and the political-agroecological training schools of combined consciousness-building and skill-formation that have been at the heart of the educational processes of member organizations of La Via Campesina since the 1990s. Applying a theoretical framework that incorporates territorial struggle, agroecology and popular education, we examine spatial and organizational aspects of each of these models for peasant education and movement-building. Recognizing that the models, their respective contexts, and the dialectical relationships therein have been in constant evolution, we share findings on the movement-place as a territorial system with socio-historical subjectivity, that is, peasant movements as territorially-embedded, collective historical actors. This leads to some conclusions in moving past educational theory that has centered upon individual subjects, and approaching a conception of territory as a subject of learning processes.
Agroecological scaling-up, as the words suggest, is best achieved as a process constructed 'from ... more Agroecological scaling-up, as the words suggest, is best achieved as a process constructed 'from below'. How then to understand the political dimension of agroecological scaling, if not also as a popular process of democratization of food systems? This article explores the political and social dimensions of the Nicaraguan process of agroecological scaling, using the frame of food sovereignty, or the right of peoples and nations to define, build, and defend their own food system. As part of the ALBA alliance of Latin American countries, Nicaragua's government positions itself to the political left of many of the more neoliberal governments in the region. Post-neoliberalism provides a historical context for the repositioning of the state in regard to peasant and family agriculture, rural education, and social economies. As agroecological knowledge is reproduced , shared and multiplied, agroecological organizational structures become essential to scaling-out and scaling-up processes. We discuss the role of the state in determining the popular diffusion of agroeco-logical methods and thinking across the Nicaraguan countryside.
Nature reserves are a commonly-used policy for biodiversity conservation in Latin America, but en... more Nature reserves are a commonly-used policy for biodiversity conservation in Latin America, but environmental laws can run contrary to customs and practices of resource-dependent communities. This paper examines conflicting frameworks of resource management and governance in an agricultural community's efforts to comply with federal policies against land burns in a nature reserve of Chiapas, Mexico. In the community of California, resource management is a key locus where local governance structures come into conflict with hierarchical state power in Mexico. Participatory workshops and semi-structured interviews were primary research instruments for discovery of community perspectives on the nature reserve, land use, and local governance. In areas where state-led conservation efforts limit land use, resource-dependent communities defend their access rights, while they also determine how to collectively and sustainably manage their own
... Food security and global environmental change – Edited by John Ingram, Polly Ericksen and Dia... more ... Food security and global environmental change – Edited by John Ingram, Polly Ericksen and Diana Liverman. Beth Bee. Article first published online: 23 JAN 2012. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Beth Bee. ...
Latin America is known for social movement organization andinnovation, and for dialog among differ... more Latin America is known for social movement organization andinnovation, and for dialog among different types of knowledge(‘ dialogo de saberes’ ). This has included dialog between aca-demic knowledges framed by Western science, popular andancestral ‘peoples’ knowledges and wisdoms,’ and so-called critical thought from global and Latin American revolutionarytraditions. From these conditions, we postulate thata specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged fromthese dynamics. While the global academy recognizes thatagroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Westernsense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent LatinAmerican version that is the most politically charged and popu-larly organized. This contribution uses a survey of selected LatinAmerican agroecologists to evaluate the extent to which sucha critical Latin American agroecology actually exists, and if so,what its characteristics are.
En los procesos territoriales de resistencia y transformación, los movimientos sociales del campo... more En los procesos territoriales de resistencia y transformación, los movimientos sociales del campo cada mas plantean la agroecología como elemento clave en una agricultura campesina ecológica, encaminado junto con la reforma agraria y la defensa de la tierra y el territorio a la construcción de la soberanía alimentaria en armonía con la Madre Tierra. Pero transformar una agricultura campesina – muchas veces atrapada en modelos tecnológicos derivados de la Revolución Verde (monocultivo, semillas comerciales, fertilizantes químicos, agrotóxicos, etc.) en una producción agroecológica, requiere procesos de formación humana, de la base campesina, además de procesos sociales que estimulan el intercambio, innovación y socialización horizontal de prácticas productivas alternativas.
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems Agroecology and La Via Campesina II. Peasant agroecology schools and the formation of a sociohistorical and political subject, 2019
Scaling up of peasant agroecology and building food sovereignty require major transformations tha... more Scaling up of peasant agroecology and building food sovereignty require major transformations that only a self-aware, critical, collective political subject can achieve. The global peasant movement, La Via Campesina (LVC) in its expression in Latin America, the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC), employs agroecology and political training or formation as a dispositive or device to facilitate the emergence of a sociohistorical and political subject, the “agroecological peasantry,” designed to be capable of transforming food systems across the globe. In this essay, we examine the pedagogical philosophies and practices used in the peasant agroecology schools and training processes of LVC and CLOC, and how they come together in territorial mediation as a dispositive for pedagogical-educational, agroecological reterritorialization.
This paper examines the relationship between agroecological scaling andthe agrarianquestion,based... more This paper examines the relationship between agroecological scaling andthe agrarianquestion,based on PuertoRico’s contradictoryagriculturalanddemographictendenciesintheaftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. We find that labor-based intensification, literally rebuilding and recovering the diversity of farms devastated by the hurricanes, is a necessary step toward scaling out agroecology in Puerto Rico. The rebuilding of farms requires bothamplemanuallaborandaccumulatedlocalknowledge,two elements which are difficult to bring together in Puerto Rico due to a complex interplay of historical and social factors. Decades of public policy based on the belief that the small farmer is not essential to Puerto Rico have produced a series of obstacles for farmers who wish to recover their farms. The peasant economy, a field of study that recognizes peasant farmers as capable subjects of their own historical resistance – within and against economies of empire – can be a powerful tool in the effort to recover local food systems and (re)create a vibrant small farmer sector. Here, we explore peasant balances, a capacity to aggregate daily farm management decisions into coherent, multifunctional economic strategies that allow for dynamic responses to changing environmental, social and market conditions, and how these balances relate to Puerto Rican coffee farmers’ capacity to stayonthelandandtransitiontowardagroecologicalproduction. Fieldwork included qualitative interviews with leaders of small farmers’ organizations, Puerto Rican government officials and farmers in the mountainous central region between August 2017 and March 2018.
This contribution traces the parallel development of two distinct approaches to peasant agroecolo... more This contribution traces the parallel development of two distinct approaches to peasant agroecological education: the peasant-to-peasant horizontal method that disseminated across Mesoamerica and the Caribbean beginning in the 1970s, and the political-agroecological training schools of combined consciousness-building and skill-formation that have been at the heart of the educational processes of member organizations of La Via Campesina since the 1990s. Applying a theoretical framework that incorporates territorial struggle, agroecology and popular education, we examine spatial and organizational aspects of each of these models for peasant education and movement-building. Recognizing that the models, their respective contexts, and the dialectical relationships therein have been in constant evolution, we share findings on the movement-place as a territorial system with socio-historical subjectivity, that is, peasant movements as territorially-embedded, collective historical actors. This leads to some conclusions in moving past educational theory that has centered upon individual subjects, and approaching a conception of territory as a subject of learning processes.
Agroecological scaling-up, as the words suggest, is best achieved as a process constructed 'from ... more Agroecological scaling-up, as the words suggest, is best achieved as a process constructed 'from below'. How then to understand the political dimension of agroecological scaling, if not also as a popular process of democratization of food systems? This article explores the political and social dimensions of the Nicaraguan process of agroecological scaling, using the frame of food sovereignty, or the right of peoples and nations to define, build, and defend their own food system. As part of the ALBA alliance of Latin American countries, Nicaragua's government positions itself to the political left of many of the more neoliberal governments in the region. Post-neoliberalism provides a historical context for the repositioning of the state in regard to peasant and family agriculture, rural education, and social economies. As agroecological knowledge is reproduced , shared and multiplied, agroecological organizational structures become essential to scaling-out and scaling-up processes. We discuss the role of the state in determining the popular diffusion of agroeco-logical methods and thinking across the Nicaraguan countryside.
Nature reserves are a commonly-used policy for biodiversity conservation in Latin America, but en... more Nature reserves are a commonly-used policy for biodiversity conservation in Latin America, but environmental laws can run contrary to customs and practices of resource-dependent communities. This paper examines conflicting frameworks of resource management and governance in an agricultural community's efforts to comply with federal policies against land burns in a nature reserve of Chiapas, Mexico. In the community of California, resource management is a key locus where local governance structures come into conflict with hierarchical state power in Mexico. Participatory workshops and semi-structured interviews were primary research instruments for discovery of community perspectives on the nature reserve, land use, and local governance. In areas where state-led conservation efforts limit land use, resource-dependent communities defend their access rights, while they also determine how to collectively and sustainably manage their own
... Food security and global environmental change – Edited by John Ingram, Polly Ericksen and Dia... more ... Food security and global environmental change – Edited by John Ingram, Polly Ericksen and Diana Liverman. Beth Bee. Article first published online: 23 JAN 2012. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Beth Bee. ...
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dialogo de saberes’
). This has included dialog between aca-demic knowledges framed by Western science, popular andancestral ‘peoples’ knowledges and wisdoms,’ and so-called
critical thought
from global and Latin American revolutionarytraditions. From these conditions, we postulate thata specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged fromthese dynamics. While the global academy recognizes thatagroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Westernsense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent LatinAmerican version that is the most politically charged and popu-larly organized. This contribution uses a survey of selected LatinAmerican agroecologists to evaluate the extent to which sucha
critical Latin American agroecology
actually exists, and if so,what its characteristics are.
dialogo de saberes’
). This has included dialog between aca-demic knowledges framed by Western science, popular andancestral ‘peoples’ knowledges and wisdoms,’ and so-called
critical thought
from global and Latin American revolutionarytraditions. From these conditions, we postulate thata specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged fromthese dynamics. While the global academy recognizes thatagroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Westernsense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent LatinAmerican version that is the most politically charged and popu-larly organized. This contribution uses a survey of selected LatinAmerican agroecologists to evaluate the extent to which sucha
critical Latin American agroecology
actually exists, and if so,what its characteristics are.