Rural Social Movements and the Question of the Land in the 21st Century

Dear Colleagues,

In the third decade of the 21st century, rural social movements in virtually all countries confront a complex nexus of threats to their modes of living, ranging from climate change and land grabbing, industrial agriculture, and the production of unhealthy food, their incorporation on unfavorable terms into agrifood value chains, organized crime, institutional attacks on shifting cultivation/rotational farming and other traditional livelihoods, the expansion of extractive capitalist industries like mining, the so-called “green economy,” nature reserves as a tool of dis-placement of peoples, wars and other armed conflicts, land privatization and parcelization, the construction of economic corridors and other megaprojects in their territories, damns, solar parks and wind farms, etcetera. These movements have been forced to constantly update their analyses of a rapidly changing world, as partially documented by the Guest Editor of this Special Issue [1]. At the same time, they engage in on-going processes to build territorial, autonomous, emancipatory alternatives under the broad umbrella concept of “re-peasantization” [2,3]. These include agroecology, food sovereignty, territorial autonomy, local, territorial markets, autonomous education, etc., and are guided by the leadership and protagonism of peasants, indigenous people, fishermen, nomadic pastoralists, forest peoples, the landless, rural workers, rural women, and peasant and indigenous youth [4,5]. Together, they put forth a broad range of alternatives to help humanity confront the civilizational and planetary poly-crisis of capitalism, including the climate, environmental, social, food, spiritual, and health crises.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights about the diverse strategies employed by rural social movements in addressing the multifaceted challenges posed by the 21st century's complex nexus of threats and crises. We seek to understand how these movements are redefining "re-peasantization" as a comprehensive response to climate change, land dispossession, and the commodification of food, advocating for a sustainable and equitable future that centers on agroecology, food sovereignty, agrarian reform and the defense of land and territory, and territorial autonomy.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following and related themes:

• Land grabbing and the defense of land and territory;
• Agroecology and food sovereignty;
• Territorial autonomy;
• Peasants and indigenous people;
• Rural social movements.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

[1] Rosset, P. (2013). Re-thinking agrarian reform, land and territory in La Via Campesina. Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(4): 721-775.

[2] Ule Muñoz, C.L., & Rosset, P.M. (2022). Repeasantization and its territorial expressions. Revista NERA, 25(64): 180-202.

[3] van der Ploeg, J.D. (2018). The New Peasantries: Rural Development in Times of Globalization. Second Edition. London: Earthscan.

[4] Giraldo, O. F., & Rosset, P. M. (2022). Emancipatory agroecologies: social and political principles. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 50(3), 820–850.

[5] Rosset, P., & Barbosa, L.P. (2021). Peasant autonomy: The necessary debate in Latin America. Interface: A Journal on Social Movements, 13(1), 46-80.

Dr. Peter Rosset
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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