Being a peasant is about resistance: West African peasant movements and the struggle for agrarian justice

ABSTRACT

Contemporary peasant movements in West Africa have their roots in local, national, and international activism dating back to the 1970s. Born in the context of structural adjustment and democratic transitions, today’s organizations are critical actors in representing the interests of the region’s peasants. Yet, today, they face numerous challenges, including the region’s security meltdown, the persistence of kleptocratic states and elites, and the lasting impacts of colonialism. In this interview, Ibrahima Coulibaly sheds light on these issues through the situation in Mali and the whole West African region.

KEYWORDS:

• ROPPA
• La Via Campesina
• food sovereignty
• agricultural development policy
• West African peasant movements
• Mali

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jun Borras for his helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 On the 1970s famine and how it was shaped by the penetration of capitalism and the implementation of colonial and post-colonial development policies, see the works of Watts (2012 [1983]) and Franke and Chasin (1980).

2 On the impact of the 1991 democratic transition over collective action in Mali, see Siméant (2014).

3 Amadou Toumani Touré, known as ATT, was elected as Mali’s president in 2002. He was reelected in 2007 and deposed by a military coup in 2012.

4 This echoes the conclusions of Benjaminsen and Ba (2019, 3), who argue that, ‘Rural peasantry, and especially pastoralists, tend to support the jihadist groups, because of an anti-state, anti-elite and pro-pastoral jihadist discourse, because people have become increasingly fatigued by and disgruntled with a predatory and corrupt state, which extracts rent from the rural peasantry, and because the development model imposed by the state has not responded to pastoral priorities’.

5 As argued by Edelman and Borras (2016, 56–57), LVC is both a ‘single actor’ and ‘an arena of action’, with ‘a plurality of ideological positions, tendencies, and influences’. See also Borras (2004).

6 Many LVC member organizations are known for having attacked transnational corporations’ infrastructures. Examples include KRRS burning GMO fields in India (Bhattacharya 2017), MST attacking the facilities of an industrial eucalyptus plantation in Brazil (Wiebe 2006), and José Bové bulldozing a McDonald’s location in southern France (Royle 2010).

7 This is João Pedro Stedile, member of the national leadership of the Brazilian Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST).

8 This was the Nyéléni Forum for Food Sovereignty, hosted by the CNOP and held in Nyéléni (southern Mali) in February 2007. See Patel (2009).

9 On a different level, disagreements on the way in which activism should be undertaken by African peasant organizations are also illustrated by MST’s attempt to export land occupation strategies to South Africa through a collaboration with the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), see Baletti, Johnson, and Wolford (2008).

10 For an argument that the consequences of Russia’s attack on Ukraine reveal the vulnerability of the existing food system, see Clapp (2023).

11 In 2008, the Malian government leased 100,000 hectares of land located in the irrigated perimeter of the Office du Niger to the Libyan company Malibya. See Larder (2015).

12 An international conference called ‘Stop Land Grabbing’ was organized by the CNOP, ROPPA, and LVC in Nyéléni in November 2011. See Martiniello (2013). On the broader context of mobilizations against land grabbing, see McKeon (2013).

13 On the land tenure reform in Mali, see Totin et al. (2021).

Additional information

Funding

The work for this interview article has received funding support from the Institut Universitaire de France.

Notes on contributors

Jacobo Grajales

Jacobo Grajales is professor of political science at the University of Lille, France, and fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. Having previously conducted research on the relationships between the state and armed groups in Colombia, he is now harnessing a comparative perspective to examine the ties between post-conflict politics and land policies. His last book, published by Routledge in 2021, is titled Agrarian Capitalism, War and Peace in Colombia. Beyond Dispossession.