View source for Evolution of Via Campesina as a Transnational Social Movement


* Article: María Elena Martínez-Torres & Peter M. Rosset (2010) La Vía Campesina: the birth and evolution of a transnational social movement, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 37:1, 149-175, DOI: 10.1080/03066150903498804

URL = http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150903498804

=Description=

"The origin and evolution of the transnational peasant movement La Vı´a
Campesina is analysed through five evolutionary stages. In the 1980s the
withdrawal of the state from rural areas simultaneously weakened corporativist
and clientelist control over rural organisations, even as conditions worsened in the
countryside. This gave rise to a new generation of more autonomous peasant
organisations, who saw the origins of their similar problems as largely coming
from beyond the national borders of weakened nation-states. A transnational
social movement defending peasant life, La Vı´a Campesina emerged out of these
autonomous organisations, first in Latin America, and then at a global scale,
during the 1980s and early 1990s (phase 1). Subsequent stages saw leaders of
peasant organisations take their place at the table in international debates (1992–
1999, phase 2), muscling aside other actors who sought to speak on their behalf;
take on a leadership role in global struggles (2000–2003, phase 3); and engage in
internal strengthening (2004–2008, phase 4). More recently (late 2008–present,
phase 5) the movement has taken on gender issues more squarely and defined itself
more clearly in opposition to transnational corporations. Particular emphasis is
given to La Vı´a Campesina’s fight to gain legitimacy for the food sovereignty
paradigm, to its internal structure, and to the ways in which the (re)construction of
a shared peasant identity is a key glue that holds the struggle together despite
widely different internal cultures, creating a true peasant internationalism."


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