Critical Latin American agroecology as a regionalism from below

ABSTRACT

Latin America has long been a hot bed for social movement organization and innovation, and for dialogue among different types of knowledge (‘dialogo de saberes’). This has included dialog between academic knowledges framed by Western science, popular and ancestral peoples knowledges and wisdoms, and so-called critical thought from global and Latin American revolutionary traditions. From these conditions, we postulate that a specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged from these dynamics, as a sort of regionalism from below. While dominant academic writing recognizes that agroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Western sense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent Latin American version that is the most politically charged and popularly organized. We postulate that the joint forces of Latin American rural movements, intellectuals and scientists have uniquely forged a significant form of regional integration and regionalism from below, and that an agroecological variant of Critical Latin American Thought underpins this regionalism. This contribution uses a survey of selected Latin American agroecologists to illustrate this regionalism and its conceptual content.

KEYWORDS:

• Agroecology
• regionalism from below
• integration
• Latin American thought
• social movements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Following Rosset and Altieri (2017, p. 1) we use the word ‘agroecologists’ to refer to a mixed bag of agroecological researchers, academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the promote agroecology, ecological farmers, agroecological peasants and agroecology activists, who together conform the agroecology movement.

2 Currently located on the Caribbean coast of Panama, the Kuna people originated in the Sierra Nevada of northern Colombia and inhabited the region of the Gulf of Urabá and the Darien mountains.

3 His classic essay Nuestra América was first published on 30 January 1891, in the Mexican newspaper El Partido Liberal.

4 First published in Guatemala in 1877.

5 According to Rodríguez (2007), these three ideas appear in different writings of José Martí and not as a specific reflection on the question of identity.

6 Fals-Borda (2008) identified the concept of sentipensante when he heard it in fishing villages of the Colombian Atlantic Coast: ‘we believe, in reality, that we act with the heart, but we also use the head. And when we combine the two, we are sentimental.’ See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJWqetRuMo.

7 Available at http://www.cumbreindigenabyayala.org/.

8 Available at https://www.ocmal.org/3740/.

9 hsoclaglobal.com/.

10 Personal observation by the authors.

11 NGOs and their networks like CLADES and MAELA have also played a central role (Altieri & Nichols, 2017; Altieri & Toledo, 2011), but for the sake of simplicity we lump them (with the their largely professional, technical staffs) here with the scientists and technicians (‘técnicos’) represented in SOCLA.

12 It should be pointed out that while the Cuban government has admirable public policies in favour of agroecology, these were mostly the result of pressure from below (Rosset et al., 2011; Rosset, 2016).

13 Direct quotes that are from the survey responses (translated by the authors) are presented in italics.

14 Latin American social movements use the word ‘formation’ to refer to those types of training that include a transversal political and organizing component.

15 It should be noted that there are also attempts by peasant organizations in other continents to link agroecology with ancestrality (see for example the case of Zimbabwe, discussed by Rosset, 2013), though the argument is more fully developed in Latin American organizations. Another feature more common in Latin America than in other regions is the linking of agroecology with more radical and socialist traditions (Martínez-Torres & Rosset, 2014).

16 Although this is a relatively small sample of the Latin American agroecological universe, the little recognition of and connection with the agroecological movements of other regions of the global South, mainly Asia and Africa, is notable. The few references that were provided to other regions came from people linked to rural social movements (CLOC, LVC), who in general showed a broader and more integral view of agroecology as a social movement and alternative mode of production and way of life.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [PVE grant awarded to P. Rosset]; and by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [Graduate Fellowship awarded to V. Val].

Notes on contributors

Peter M. Rosset

Peter M. Rosset is a professor and researcher in the Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico. He is also a BPV-FUNCAP Visiting Researcher in the Graduate Program in Sociology (PPGS) of the Universidade Estadual do Ceara (UECE) in Fortaleza, Brazil, and Visiting Professor at the Social Research Institute (CUSRI) of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

Lia Pinheiro Barbosa

Lia Pinheiro Barbosa is professor at the Crateús School of Education (FAEC), the Graduate Program in Sociology (PPGS), and the Intercampus Masters in Education (MAIE), all at the Universidade Estadual do Ceara (UECE) in Brazil.

Valentín Val

Valentín Val is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico.

Nils McCune

Nils McCune is a research associate in the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative of the University of Vermont, and a visiting researcher in the Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment, of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico.