This book was made possible by practices of peasant resistance. Without the inspiring practices of peasant activists, it would not have been possible to write a book reflecting on how these practices can inform understandings of transnational resistance, human rights and democracy. The publications of these movements, and the writers working on these movements, have been extremely helpful in...

Peasants, those who live from the land, were famously described by Karl Marx as ‘a sack of potatoes’, entirely lacking in any organisation.Marx, 1852, chap. 12. ‘Their mode of...

To set the context for the discussion of peasant resistance in the remainder of the book, this chapter explores the contemporary agro-industrial food regime that works to dispossess peasants. I begin with eight vignettes concerning peasant dispossession and peasant resistance. These vignettes reveal the array of actors and processes involved in the contemporary politics of peasant dispossession....

The previous chapter tracked the rise of an agro-industrial food regime which sees food produced using industrial methods before being transported all over the world. In this food system, peasants are either cleared from land in favour of large-scale, machine-run farms or lose their autonomy as they are incorporated into the supply chains of often-usurious agri-food corporations. The overall...

When facilitating resistance through struggles over land, connecting resistance through movement organisation and engaging with national and global institutions, peasant movements have articulated demands for rights. Rights to food, land and food sovereignty are enacted by grassroots actors through land occupations that see peasants take land in order to produce food and a livelihood for...

In February 2007, six hundred members of peasant movements from across ninety-eight countries and five continents met to discuss the future of food sovereignty. The meeting took place in Selingué, Mali, in a specially constructed communal space located near the town. The village was built manually, using native designs and materials found nearby. It was called Nyéléni in...

The peasant movement have connected across borders, cultures and worldviews in order to strengthen their place-based alternatives to the agro-industrial food system that despoils the planet and undermines autonomous peasant livelihoods. Their transnational connections have enabled them to demand as a global alternative a form of agriculture based around rights to food sovereignty. In so doing,...

agency/agent(s),1.11 , 1.18 , 4.3 , 4.10 ,...

Series Editor: Ruth Kinna