ARTICLE IN PRESS

0743-0167/$ - se

doi:10.1016/j.jru

E-mail addr

Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149

www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

The power of peasants: Reflections on themeanings of La Vıa Campesina

Annette Aurelie Desmarais

Department of Justice Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Sask., Canada S4S 0A2

Abstract

This article assesses the social and political significance of the international farmers’ movement, La Vıa Campesina by exploring how it

has evolved since its inception in 1993. It explores the movement’s accomplishments and the tensions that exist between international

expansion and a commitment to represent the local interests of member organizations.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: La Vıa Campesina; Farmers’ movement; Globalization; Peasant

1. Introduction

A campesino comes from the countryside. There havealways been campesinos. What did not exist before wereinvestors, industrialists, political parties, etc. Campesi-nos have always existed and they will always exist. Theywill never be abolished.

— Marcelo Carreon Mundo (2000), leader with theEjidos Productores Forestales de la Zona Maya, QuintanaRoo, Mexico.

Since the signing of the Uruguay Round of the GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade representatives of La VıaCampesina organizations from the North, South, East andWest have walked together in the streets of Hong Kong,Geneva, Paris, Seattle, Quebec City, Rome and PortoAlegre, among other cities. Wearing green caps, panuelos,white t-shirts and waving green flags decorated with acolorful logo while energetically chanting slogans, La VıaCampesina has become a strong voice of radical oppositionto the globalization of an industrial and neoliberal modelof agriculture (Desmarais, 2002, 2007; Edelman, 2003;Patel, 2005a).

La Vıa Campesina is an international movement embra-cing organizations of peasants, small and medium-scalefarmers, rural women, farm workers and indigenous

e front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

rstud.2007.12.002

ess: Annette.desmarais@uregina.ca

agrarian communities in Asia, the Americas, Europe andAfrica. It provides opportunities for peasants to articulate acoherent set of demands in the international arena. La VıaCampesina has achieved this by consolidating a collectiveidentity, providing spaces for internal debate, and buildingalliances with other social movements and progressive non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Interest in La VıaCampesina is vibrant: at the time of writing in early 2007,149 farm organizations representing millions of farmingfamilies from 56 countries belonged to La Vıa Campesina.Walden Bello (2003) argues that the ability of a

movement to act effectively depends on its capacity tocollectively analyze the current global context, definestrategic goals and elaborate appropriate strategies andtactics. It also depends crucially on a movement’s commit-ment to distribute power among all participants and itsability to develop structures and mechanisms to ensureinclusive democratic decision-making and participation(Bell, 2002; Eschle, 2001; Desmarais, 2007). Only then canan international movement continue to accurately repre-sent the interests and concerns of its constituencies.Is La Vıa Campesina succeeding in doing this and if so

how? What exactly does La Vıa Campesina’s experiencetell us about peasants, farmers and the links between thelocal and the global; about transnational social move-ments; and about how the role of agriculture in develop-ment might be rethought? This article assesses the

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 139

significance of La Vıa Campesina by addressing thesequestions.

2. A special political moment

Since La Vıa Campesina emerged in 1993 resistanceto neoliberal globalization has strengthened and move-ments are more organized.1 Movements have establishedindependent spaces—the World Social Forum and itsregional off-shoots, for example—to debate alter-natives. Participation among different sectors of civilsociety is stronger and protest is decentralized andcoordinated to occur in many parts of the world onthe same day. In response to the USA-driven war onIraq, global justice and peace movements have convergedand demonstrated strength in numbers as millions ofpeople from all walks of life marched in the streetsof communities around the world. Peasant protest,certainly, continues unabated (Desmarais, 2007). Despiteincreased security measures and the clamping down ondissent following the terrorists attacks of 11 September2001, and The Economist’s (2004) wishful thinking thatglobal justice movements had all but died, resistance isstrong.

Amory Starr (2000, p. 224) concludes her study of anti-corporate movements by reminding us of Peter Kropot-kin’s prescient words written at the turn of the 20thcentury: after all is said and done ‘‘‘the question of bread’ isthe preeminent social question.’’ She goes on to suggestthat in today’s context ‘‘centring food in economic andcommunity analysis is an important way to get people todeal with environmental and economic issues’’ (Starr,2000). Because of humanity’s daily interactions with food itcan also highlight the very real threats to, and the roots of,culture and community. Whether resistance movements arefighting privatization of the commons, environmentaldegradation, the imposition of genetically modified organ-isms (GMOs) in food, or negotiation of trade agreements—all are deeply connected to agriculture and those whoproduce food.

Citizens’ growing worries about the safety and quality offood pose an important challenge to the political,economic, and cultural sustainability of a globalized,corporate, market-driven food system. Food scares—fromGMO contamination of corn stocks in Mexico, mad-cowdisease in Europe and Canada, foot and mouth disease inBritain, to the Asian flu in poultry—have spurred risinginterest in alternative food systems.

All of this represents significant political opportunitiesfor a movement like the Vıa Campesina. For years we have

1For works on transnational movements, see the ‘‘Global Civil Society’’

yearbooks available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook05.

htm #introduction (Anheier et al., 2001, 2005; Glasius et al., 2002; Kaldor

et al., 2003). Other studies include, among others, Bandy and Smith

(2005), Mertes (2004), Eschle and Maiguashca (2005), Eschle (2001), Starr

(2000), Florini (2000), Hamel et al. (2001), Gills (2002), Khagram et al.

(2002), and O’Brien et al. (2000).

heard bureaucrats, government representatives and worldleaders repeat the mantra—there is no alternative to

globalization—that is, the globalization of an exclusionarydevelopment model called economic liberalization. Howrefreshing to see that peasants and farmers around theworld have more imagination and that they are activelyparticipating in the globalization of another vision of howthe world should and could be.Perhaps, the farmer’s imagination is driven by immediate

and practical concerns. After all it is farmers and peasantswho know, feel and live the daily consequences of thiscorporate model of agriculture. While governments ply themedia with the news that economic globalization is leadingto increased exports (and therefore to prosperity for all),the very existence of farming families depends onalternative peasant-led development.

3. The significance of identity

Marx predicted that with agrarian capitalism peasantswould simply disappear. The masters of globalizationexpect them to succumb to commercialized large farms.Yet, peasants are stubbornly refusing to go away. Indeed,in the face of a development model geared to ensure thenear extinction of peasants and small farmers, La VıaCampesina is redefining what it means to be a peasant.A process we might call ‘‘re-peasantization’’ (Welch, 2001)is occurring as rural movements proudly embrace the term‘‘peasant’’ to describe themselves (Edelman, 1999, 2003).This is certainly the case for many of Vıa Campesinaorganizations in Latin America that were formed in the late1980s and the early 1990s. Asian organizations too, like theFederation of Indonesian Peasant Unions (FSPI) and thePeasant Movement of the Philippines (KMP), are clearlyaffirming their peasant identity.What does it mean that peasants and farmers belonging

to La Vıa Campesina proudly declare an alternativeidentity: declare themselves to be ‘‘peasants’’? In theEnglish language literature of Europe the term ‘‘peasant’’has a restricted meaning tied up in feudalism. In thecolonial context, and especially in other languages, itsmeaning expanded. Thus, paysan or campesino were alwaysto some extent broader categories. But, even in its broadestusage—campesino in Latin America—peasants wereviewed as remnants of the past and in everyday usage theterm was pejorative. Their demise was welcomed bycapitalists, national and development planners, indeed, byvirtually everyone but the peasants themselves. In thiscontext resurrecting ‘‘peasants’’ is an act of resistance. AsNettie Wiebe, from the Canadian National Farmers Union(NFU), explains:

If you actually look at what ‘peasant’ means, it means‘people of the land.’ Are we Canadian farmers ‘people ofthe land’? Well, yes, of course. And it’s important totake that language back y We too are peasants and it’sthe land and our relationship to the land and food

ARTICLE IN PRESS

2Statement made on 1 March 2003 during a farmers’ meeting in

Saskatoon, Canada.3As Miles (2001, p. 149) reminds us, the articulation of a shared identity

is ‘‘a political achievement y not a given condition.’’ Many theorists

highlight the significance and complex processes involved in the

construction of collective identities (Melucci, 1988, 1989; Escobar and

Alvarez, 1992; Starn, 1999; Radcliffe, 1990). Studies also confirm the

power of constructing alternative identities in the context of globalization

(Stammers, 1999; Miles, 2001; Eschle, 2001; Desmarais, 2007, among

others).4La Vıa Campesina, of course, is not the only social actor in the

international arena representing the interests of rural peoples. Borras

(2004) explores rival movements in the context of agrarian reform,

Edelman (2003) surveys other agrarian movements and Desmarais (2003b)

demonstrates how Vıa Campesina positions and strategies differ from that

of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers and NGOs.5La Vıa Campesina introduced this concept in 1996. It then worked with

other organizations to elaborate the ‘‘Peoples’ Food Sovereignty’’ position

A.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149140

production that distinguishes us y We’re not part ofthe industrial machine. We’re much more closely linkedto the places where we grow food and how we growfood, and what the weather is there y The languagearound this matters. It begins to make us understandthat ‘people of the land’—peasantry everywhere, themillions of small subsistence peasants with whom wethink we have so little in common—identifies them andit identifies us. They’re being evicted from their land,and that decimates their identity and their community.And we’re also being relocated in our society y Thelanguage? As long as you keep us in separate categoriesand we’re the highly industrialized farmers who are sortof quasi-business entrepreneurs and they’re the sub-sistence peasants, then we can’t see how closely we andall our issues are linked. (Quoted in Edelman, 2003,p. 187)

It is this vision that the Vıa Campesina name itselfsuggests. At its constitutive conference delegates fromBritain declared that the literal translation—Peasant Roador Peasant Way—was inappropriate because of thederogatory connotation attached to the term ‘‘peasant’’and the fact that peasants did not exist in the Englishcountryside. However, as Saturnino Borras (2001), formerrepresentative of the KMP and a founding member of theVıa Campesina recalls, many argued in favor of using theterm ‘‘peasant’’ because ‘‘farmer’’ also had connotations‘‘that did not capture the nature and character of the farmsector we do represent.’’ In the end, a compromise wasreached; delegates opted not to translate ‘‘Vıa Campesina’’into English.

Reclaiming the meaning of ‘‘peasant’’ is perhaps one ofthe Vıa Campesina’s most important accomplishments.Whether a peasant, paysan, paysanne, campesino, campesi-

na, small farmer, agricultor, agricultora, productor, produc-

tora, rural worker or indigenous peasant—all haveembraced and have been embraced by La Vıa Campesina.Just as Edelman (1999) found in his work on Costa Ricanpeasants, those involved in La Vıa Campesina do notnecessarily distinguish among these terms. Karen Pedersen,former Women’s President of the Canadian NFU,stated that:

Historically, we were peasants. Then, when that termcame to mean ‘‘backward’’ we became ‘‘farmers.’’ Inthese days ‘‘farmer’’ has the connotation of inefficiencyand we are strongly encouraged to be more modern, tosee ourselves instead as managers, business people orentrepreneurs capable of handling increasingly largerpieces of territory. Well, I am a farmer and I am apeasant. Through my participation in the Vıa Campe-sina I learned that I had much more in common withpeasants than I did with some of my agribusinessneighbours. I am reclaiming the term peasant becauseI believe that small is more efficient, it is sociallyintelligent, it is community oriented. Being a peasant

stands for the kind of agriculture and rural communitieswe are striving to build.2

If some people in the NFU are ‘‘rediscovering’’ theirpeasant roots, others in Mexico had never doubted them.For instance, Emiliano Cerros Nava (2000) from theUNORCA patiently explained, ‘‘This debate in theliterature y is a fabrication at a higher level, by thosewho know more. In the countryside, out there, there is nosuch debate. We continue being peasants. That’s the way itis.’’This is a politicized identity.3 It reflects people who share

a deep commitment to place, people deeply attached to aparticular piece of land, people who are all part of aparticular rural community, people whose mode ofexistence is under threat. This place-bound identity, thatof ‘‘people of the land,’’ reflects the belief that they have theright to be on the land. They have the right and obligationto produce food. They have the right to be seen as fulfillingan important function in society at large. They have theright to live in viable communities and the obligation tobuild community. All of the above form essential parts oftheir distinct identity as peasants; in today’s politicizedglobalization articulating identity across borders based onlocality and tradition is a deeply political act.La Vıa Campesina has jealously guarded its peasant-led

status. All Vıa Campesina representatives are either farm-ing themselves or they have been selected, appointed, orelected by farm organizations. Membership is restricted toauthentic organizations of peasants, farmers, rural women,farm workers, indigenous communities that formally mustdemonstrate agreement with the positions of La VıaCampesina. In this way the movement has succeeded inclearly articulating and firmly placing in the internationalarena the demands and visions of those who actuallyproduce food.4 All of these are best conceptualized in whatthe Vıa Campesina calls food sovereignty which includes,among other things, ‘‘the right of peoples to define theiragricultural and food policy’’ and the ‘‘right to produce ourown food in our own territory’’ (Vıa Campesina, 1996a,2000a, b).5 La Vıa Campesina sees food sovereignty as a

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 141

concrete alternative to the neoliberal view of agriculture; itis an alternative vision that is grounded in the daily realitiesof those who produce food.

La Vıa Campesina’s peasant identity reflects a deepattachment to culture. The production, distribution,preparation, consumption and celebration of food are allfundamental to rural cultures. Seeds are perhaps peasants’most precious and a deeply cultural and sacred resource.La Vıa Campesina regularly engages in the ritual ofexchanging seeds. In virtually all gatherings, representa-tives bring seeds from their homeland to exchange withtheir counterparts from afar. At the first World FoodSummit held in Rome in 1996 La Vıa Campesinadistributed its declaration accompanied with a packageof seeds to all delegates attending the official summit(Vıa Campesina, 1996a). It also brought truckloads ofearth into the city to form a plot of land and representa-tives engaged in a symbolic act of planting seeds. La VıaCampesina also closed the NGO Forum on FoodSovereignty (held within the framework of the WorldFood Summit: Five Years Later) by distributing seedscollected from around the world while delegates listened tomusic and a poem expounding the sacredness of seeds(Wiebe, 2002).

In doing this, the Vıa Campesina helps ‘‘ground’’ thedebates. In gifting, exchanging or symbolically plantingseeds, the essence of life, the Vıa Campesina takes thefamiliar and fundamental in peasants’ daily reality toimpress on ‘‘others’’ the profound importance of farmers’relationship to seeds and to the land. These actions leave avisual imprint of an important yet very simple message: we,the peasants and farmers of the world, take seeds, we plantthem and we turn them into food. This is our role in societyand it is a vital contribution.

4. The meanings of La Vıa Campesina

What is the meaning of La Vıa Campesina in people’slives? Farm leaders’ most common answer is that themovement makes them feel they are part of a widercommunity of people who share a similar situation andcommon values. As one member of the NFU said ‘‘When Ilook across my fields at the end of the day I now know thatI am not alone.’’6 Rogelio Alquisiras Borgos, a Mexicanpeasant leader, expresses the same sentiment:

I think La Vıa Campesina is contributing like a smallgrain of sand because we are no longer alone in theworld. It is contributing y in changing existing

(footnote continued)

accessible at http://www.peoplesfoodsovereignty.org/content/view/32/26/.

See Long (2005), Nicholson (2001), Menezes (2001), Patel (2005b),

Windfuhr and Jonsen (2005), Desmarais (2007), Rosset (2003) and

McMichael (2004) for discussions of food sovereignty.6This comment was made by Fred Tait when thanking M.D.

Nanjundaswamy (former Vıa Campesina Regional Coordinator from

India) for his presentation at the NFU National Convention in November

1999.

relations of domination y [A]s a result of whathappened in Seattle, we, who are in the most isolatedplace in the planet, we saw with open eyes thatorganizations like La Vıa Campesina y shared a vision.The WTO is serving the interests of transnationals andthis is something we must confront. In the streets wedenounced this injustice to the whole world. AlthoughI was not in Seattle, my organization which is part ofLa Vıa Campesina was there and I know we arecontributing through our local and national experience.(Personal interview)

La Vıa Campesina helps expand participating organiza-tions’ visions and analysis of the shifts occurring in theagricultural sector around the world. By constructingspaces for internal debates it enables organizations toshare local experiences and knowledge, tactics, and visionsfor organizing in the countryside. Based on the daily realityof participating organizations, it then develops collectivepositions and strategies.La Vıa Campesina insists that for far too long rural and

food policies have been developed in the absence of thosemost affected and peasants have a unique place and criticalrole in redefining agricultural policies (Vıa Campesina,1993, 1996b, 2000b). The goal of the movement is to effectchange in the countryside, change that improves thelivelihoods of people of the land, change that enhanceslocal food production for local consumption, change thatopens democratic spaces and empowers ‘‘people of theland’’ with a greater role and position in decision-makingon issues affecting their daily lives. Essentially, La VıaCampesina seeks to put in place an alternative model ofagriculture and rural development and it believes that thiscan occur only when local communities gain greater accessto and control over local productive resources, and socialand political power.Since local communities are deeply affected by outside

forces, La Vıa Campesina’s strategy then is to helpstrengthen local and national organizations by buildingsolidarity and unity among a great diversity of organi-zations, and creating spaces for these organizationsto participate in international deliberations on agri-culture and food. In doing this La Vıa Campesina isredefining the spaces and the terms of participation(Desmarais, 2007).Thus, La Vıa Campesina works in an environment of

constant tension and reaffirmation. It is a transnationalmovement of people defined by place. It is a movement inwhich participants not only seek to provide an alternativevoice in international fora, but also seek to use theconnections among themselves thus forged to reinforcetheir identity, through the use of a constant referent:the routine of their everyday lives grounded in plantingand harvesting. This rootedness—in all of its variousconnotations—is being used both to imagine and topresent an alternative present and future: an alternativemodernity that embraces innovation and global interaction

ARTICLE IN PRESS

8While UPANACIONAL left ASOCODE, the Mesa Nacional Campe-

sina (another Costa Rican organization involved in the Vıa Campesina)

A.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149142

while not obliterating tradition and the importance oflocality.7

5. Regional articulations—strongest or weakest links?

When La Vıa Campesina was first formed it divided itselfinto five regions. As the movement grew and responded tocultural dynamics and regional trade negotiations, thisstructure was later expanded to eight regions. In structur-ing itself in this way La Vıa Campesina makes a number ofassumptions. For instance, national organizations withinthe region are expected to work well together, and regionswill find resources to strengthen the work at the regionallevel. In reality, these are among the most importantchallenges to the inclusive functioning of the movement.

When an organization seeks to join La Vıa Campesinaits application is considered by current members in theregion where the prospective member is located. The regionthen informs the International Coordinating Commission(ICC) of the new member’s entry. The ICC provisionallyrecognizes the new member while official recognition isreceived at the International Conferences. If necessary theICC can intervene and overrule a region’s decision.However, the ICC rarely intervenes since this might wellcreate tensions around existing regional consensus. Thisentry process places greater decision-making at thenational and regional levels. It respects the fact thatcurrent members, especially at the national level, are morefamiliar with the history and politics of the applicantorganization and thus better able to judge whether it trulyembodies the ideals of La Vıa Campesina. This mechanismclearly helps to exclude the entry of organizations whoseinterests might be to divert or undermine the movement.

However, this process can also restrict organizationswhose participation could contribute significantly to LaVıa Campesina. For example, for several years one of themovement’s stated priorities was to expand its presence inAsia. However, some South Asian organizations interestedin joining the Vıa Campesina found their way blocked atthe regional level. Internal divisions and leadership styles(Puttanaiah, 2000) as well as political differences andinsufficient resources for regional coordination and com-munication are reasons given for the low membershipnumbers in South Asia (Nanjundaswamy, 2000).

In other regions some national organizations that arealready Vıa Campesina members wanted to participate butthey encountered resistance from other member organiza-tions within the region. For example, the Union Nacionalde Pequenos y Medianos Productores Agropecuarios(UPANACIONAL), a founding Vıa Campesina organiza-tion in Costa Rica, notified the ICC on two separateoccasions with concerns that it received little informationand that it was rarely invited to join Vıa Campesinadelegations from Central America. The heart of the

7For discussions of ‘‘alternative modernities,’’ see Gaonkar (2001),

Knauft (2002), Escobar (1992) and Alvarez et al. (1998).

problem, no doubt, was the fact that Asociacion deOrganizaciones Campesinas Centroamericanas para laCooperacion y el Desarrollo (ASOCODE), the VıaCampesina Regional Coordinator for Central America,had suffered an internal crisis which resulted in UPANA-CIONAL leaving the regional organization.8 Regardless ofregional tensions, the UPANACIONAL remained amember of La Vıa Campesina that was being effectivelyexcluded. Although the Operational Secretariat did re-spond to UPANACIONAL, to my knowledge, littlechange occurred.There are also considerable differences in capacity

among the regions. This is partly due to history. Whileseveral regions had already been working at a regional levelprior to the creation of La Vıa Campesina, others had not.For example, the Coordination Paysanne Europeenne(CPE) as of 1986 had established a structure and mech-anisms for communication and coordination amongparticipating organizations throughout Western Europe.Similarly, ASOCODE, established itself as a regional entityin 1991 and had gained 2 years of regional experience inCentral America. Meanwhile, in North America, organiza-tions had just barely started to get to known each other injoint efforts against the NAFTA. There had been littleinteraction between the Spanish, English and Frenchspeaking areas of the Caribbean, and both Asian regionshad virtually no history of regional interaction.La Vıa Campesina has not yet fully dealt with these

regional differences and regional capacity building remainsa key challenge. The Vıa Campesina Three Year Plan1999–2001 aimed to strengthen all regions by establishingseven regional secretariats to ensure greater regionalcoordination and communication (Vıa Campesina, 1998).Yet, virtually no Vıa Campesina resources were allocatedto this effort—at least not until 2003. Instead, regionalstrengthening depended almost exclusively on each region’sability to source funds for this purpose. In some cases, likeNorth America, this proved successful and for 2 years afull-time staff person was stationed in the UNORCA officeand the NFU was provided with technical support.Meanwhile, in the South Asian region little was accom-plished since the Regional Coordinator, the KarnatakaState Farmers’ Association, depends entirely on fundsraised from its membership. The situation in SoutheastAsia improved between 2000 and 2004 when the FSPI wasRegional Coordinator. Unlike its predecessor, Thailand’sAssembly of the Poor which functioned with very limitedresources, the FSPI assigned two staff to internationalrelations.This uneven development among the regions contributed

to a greater prominence of Latin American regions within

remained. As a reviewer of this article pointed out, tensions between these

two national organizations, no doubt, also helped shape regional and

international dynamics.

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 143

La Vıa Campesina. Ten months following La VıaCampesina’s constitutive conference in April 1993, theCoordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones delCampo (CLOC) emerged and has since contributedimmensely to strengthening ties among rural organizationsthroughout Latin America (Petras, 1998; Welch, 2000).Since most Vıa Campesina organizations are also membersof the CLOC, strong relations of cooperation wereestablished through CLOC conferences and congresses,exchanges and mobilization on common issues. Unlike theAsian regions, work within Latin America was greatlyfacilitated by cultural and language similarities.

Consequently, some of the Vıa Campesina’s positionsand actions reflect more of the Latin American experienceand perspective. Perhaps the most obvious of these is theVıa Campesina–FIAN Global Campaign for AgrarianReform which has yet to secure the participation of manyof Asian Vıa Campesina organizations. For example, onlytwo Asian women participated in the International Work-shop on Agrarian Reform and Gender held in Bolivia in2003 compared with 49 Latin American representatives(Campana Global por la Reforma Agraria, 2003,pp 135–136). This highly skewed participation dynamicmeant that far less space in the workshop was allocated tothe cultural and gender dimensions of land tenure, land useand land rights as they have been experienced in Asia. Theoriginal Vıa Campesina Position on Agrarian Reform alsoreflected primarily the Latin American experience whileignoring the human rights perspective of the SoutheastAsian delegation (Saragih, 2003).

Certainly the image of La Vıa Campesina reflects variousaspects of Latin American culture. The caps, panuelos,slogans, and MST inspired ‘‘mıstica’’ have now becomeLa Vıa Campesina’s trademark. On numerous occasions,Spanish has been the dominant language of delegationmeetings. Consequently, North American, European andAsian delegations have often joined Latin Americancounterparts in raising their fists and shouting Spanishslogans like ‘‘la lucha continua’’ and ‘‘viva la VıaCampesina.’’ This, until recently, had rarely been recipro-cated with slogans chanted in Thai, Bahasa or Kannada.

No doubt, the fact that the Operational Secretariat ofLa Vıa Campesina was located in Honduras from 1996 to2004 also helped strengthen a presence in Latin Americasince it played an important role in supporting the CLOC.Had the Operational Secretariat been relocating to Asia asmany had hoped would happen at the Third InternationalConference in October 2000, La Vıa Campesina’s presencein Asia might have improved significantly during thesubsequent 3 years.

This is not to criticize the vitality and critical contribu-tions of Latin American regions. Clearly, La Vıa Campe-sina would not be what it is today had there not been suchmeaningful participation. As more Asian and Africanorganizations join, La Vıa Campesina will undoubtedly gothrough significant shifts. A small sign of times to comeoccurred at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later

when delegation members donned hats of an Asiandesign—wide, v-shaped hats made of reeds. And, one ofthe meetings was opened by a Thai peasant, seated in lotusposition, who with graceful hand movements demonstrateda consciousness raising exercise (Wiebe, 2002).Ultimately, La Vıa Campesina’s capacity to engage in

democratic processes that ensure equal distribution ofinfluence, power and participation among all regionsdepends largely on whether or not it acknowledges existinginequalities and actively seeks to rectify these. Further-more, the extent to which the movement succeeds inembracing new organizations as members will depend onwhat kinds of mechanisms it introduces to restrict thepower of current organizations to act as gatekeepers inareas where there are regional tensions and conflicts.

6. National level tensions and responsibilities

Gatekeepers and bottlenecks also exist at the nationallevel. Pedro Magana (2000), a former UNORCA leader,explains that,

There is also a tendency within organizations toconcentrate power and opportunities which ultimatelymakes some individuals more indispensable than others.You really have to socialize the international relation-ship so that it will help strengthen the nationalorganization. As more people gain international experi-ences this helps broaden internal discussions as theybring other visions and other points of view. (Personalinterview)

La Vıa Campesina acknowledges the need to socializethe Vıa Campesina beyond those who have the opportunityto participate in international delegations and actions (VıaCampesina, 2003b). While some organizations have putefforts into socializing La Vıa Campesina from the nationalto the local, others have not. For the movement to meananything at the local level fundamentally depends on theexistence of democratic decision-making structures andparticipatory mechanisms of its national organizations.As is sometimes the case, it is often easier to work with

organizations far away than those in one’s own territory.The case of Mexico exemplifies the difficulties that La VıaCampesina faces at the national level. As a result of theSecond International Conference held in Tlaxcala Mexico(in 1996) five Mexican organizations joined the VıaCampesina. Throughout their history these organizationshave worked together to varying degrees of intensity ondifferent issues. However, in the late 1990s the UNORCAturned inward to focus on internal strengthening at theexpense of maintaining strong ties to all of the organiza-tions with which it had worked in the past (Gomez, 2000).This strategy, of course, affected the UNORCA’s ability tocoordinate Vıa Campesina work among Mexican organi-zations and hence there was far less communication andcollaboration. As Vıctor Suarez, a representative of the

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149144

Mexican Asociacion Nacional de Empresas Comercializa-doras de Productores del Campo (ANEC), remarked:

Certainly the problem is that La Vıa Campesinaorganizations at the national level do not engage injoint work. We don’t have the perspective of workingtogether y for a Mexican project y When theCanadian [a staff-position based in the UNORCAoffice] was in Mexico there was a link but this wasreally an external connection that carried out thisfunction on behalf of the Regional Coordinator, theNFU, or the Operational Secretariat y but the link wasnot internal to Mexico and it was not established byMexican organizations. (Personal interview)

Part of the problem rested in the fact that Canada’sNFU, as North American Regional Coordinator, simplydid not have sufficient resources to coordinate within theregion as a whole, and also within Mexico. Consequently,the NFU worked with UNORCA to secure a staff positionin Mexico with the expectation that the UNORCA wouldthen handle communication and coordination withinMexico. In doing so, the NFU failed to take into accountthe possibility of national level tensions and conflictsamong the Mexican organizations. The NFU, as anoutsider, had no way of understanding or handlingtensions that were no doubt the result of historicalexperiences, jockeying for position in national struggles,differences in political strategies or personality conflicts.Some of these factors were certainly at the heart of the ten-sions between ANEC and UNORCA during this period.

The Mexican experience points to a number of issues forthe functioning of an international movement. First, if oneof the basic aims of La Vıa Campesina is to build a unitedmovement then how are we to understand the lack ofsolidarity and collaboration that might exist at the morelocal or national level? As Vıctor Suarez (2000) observed:

This puts into question the very principles of La VıaCampesina. In reality the issue really rests with theMexican organizations. The best case scenario is that wewill someday create a kind of Vıa Campesina withinMexico. That is, a process of national convergence andnational action that expresses Mexican characteristics,that generates strategies of exchange and solidarity, andconstructs moments and spaces for coordination ofaction on the same issues that La Vıa Campesina isaddressing. (Personal interview)

Although La Vıa Campesina certainly cannot forcenational organizations to work together—when tensionsand conflicts do flare up at the national level, does it have arole? Can an international movement intervene effectivelyin national situations? In the interests of respecting theautonomy of organizations La Vıa Campesina, to date, hasconsistently shied away from ‘‘meddling’’ at the nationallevel. Yet, national conflicts and tensions can and do affectthe movement at an international level. And the lack of

coordination and communication did limit La VıaCampesina in Mexico—at least temporarily.Ultimately, the Mexican organizations did end up

working on a joint project. When faced with furtherliberalization as part of the agriculture chapters of theNAFTA, all five Mexican Vıa Campesina organizationscoalesced in the strong coalition called ‘‘El Campo no

Aguanta Mas’’ that led over 2 months of mobilization andsubsequent negotiation with the Mexican government(Cuadernos Agrarios, 2003). No doubt, one of thecontributing factors that helped form this coalition wasthe international experiences that these organizationsgained through their participation in La Vıa Campesinaand the CLOC.

7. A fine balance: the local, national and international

When La Vıa Campesina was first formed it concen-trated resources on strengthening itself internally bydefining participatory and inclusive structures for commu-nication, consultation and coordination. Exchangesamong participating organizations, regional meetings, VıaCampesina conferences and delegations were all critical tofostering an understanding of each others’ realities,establishing common ground and building unity.Initially, while participating in international events Vıa

Campesina delegations spent much of their time in internalmeetings hashing out common analyses and strategies.Only then was it confidently able to articulate collectivepositions. This was certainly the case at the WTOMinisterial Conference in Geneva in 1998 when La VıaCampesina spent little time at events organized by NGOsand other groups. The World Food Summit in 1996 isanother example when the movement placed more empha-sis on internal cohesion than external interaction, workinglong into the night to further develop the concept of foodsovereignty (Desmarais, 2003b).Once La Vıa Campesina consolidated itself internally it

then began to reach out to establish alliances with othersocial movements and some NGOs that shared a similarvision. It played a key role in bringing peasants’ andfarmers’ perspectives to transnational networks like theOur World is Not for Sale coalition, groups working ongenetic resources, and the NGO International PlanningCommittee of the World Food Summit: Five Years Later.It helped to create networks like the ‘‘Agri-trade Group’’ tofocus attention on trade and agriculture and it jointlylaunched two international campaigns: the Global Cam-paign for Agrarian Reform with FIAN, and the Interna-tional Seed Campaign with Friends of the EarthInternational. Consequently, La Vıa Campesina is nowmore linked to, and plays an important role, in globalsocial justice movements.La Vıa Campesina’s efforts have led to important shifts

in the terms of the debate. The concept of food sovereigntyhas spread widely and is now being explored by local,national, and international movements as well as global

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 145

institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) and the United Nations Commission on HumanRights (Ziegler, 2003, 2004). Agrarian reform is nowback on the international agenda and the World Bank’smarket-assisted land reform program is now in question(Vıa Campesina, 2003b). The concept of peasant rightsre-entered the international arena when the Commission onHuman Rights was petitioned to start work on a‘‘Convention on the Rights of Peasants’’ (Vıa Campesina,2004g).

Consequently, La Vıa Campesina has been underenormous pressure to be everywhere. It has attracted theattention of global institutions and international NGOsseeking further legitimization by winning its participation.The mere act of having coffee in an Italian cafe with arepresentative of a well-funded NGO has been interpretedas a partnership! (Vıa Campesina, 2002). On a weekly basisthe movement receives invitations to participate in events,attend meetings, and join working groups and interna-tional networks.

La Vıa Campesina’s ability to respond adequatelyto these demands rests on the extent and capacityof available human resources and internationalcoordination. Given that most Vıa Campesina representa-tives are recognized farm leaders in their own countries,all of whom already have overbooked agendas, theirability to fly off to international meetings is greatly limited.Even when farm leaders do agree to represent La VıaCampesina at some international event their participationis sometimes canceled at the last minute due to pressingwork at home. This highlights the need to better under-stand the dynamics of a locally rooted internationalmovement.

While strengthening its work at the international level LaVıa Campesina may have sacrificed much needed spacesfor internal debates and organizational strengthening.A Mexican peasant leader, interviewed in 2000, com-mented that:

La Vıa Campesina has oriented itself towardscampaigns and mobilizations as a key way ofworking. There is the WTO campaign, the agrarianreform campaign, this and that campaign. But,there is no reflection about internal functioning anddiscussion about the ways of working that we want atthe national, regional and international levels. (Personalinterview)

This is certainly the case when Vıa Campesina delega-tions participate in international events. The delegates arein demand as speakers and organizers of workshops andmobilizations. This leaves insufficient time for extensiveinternal debates about the issues themselves, nevermind discussion of internal organizational mechanisms(Vıa Campesina, 2003b).

There are signs that La Vıa Campesina regressedinternally as it became a more prominent player on theinternational stage. Lack of close attention to internal

strengthening resulted in less communication and fewerspaces for internal debate (Gomez, 2000). Pedro Magana(2000) argued that:

La Vıa Campesina could provide better opportunitiesfor learning and leadership building. For example,I would like to know about the NFU’s experience withelectoral politics. I could provide y a report on ourlegislative work y on developing a new law of ruraldevelopment in Mexico. These are also contributions tothe Vıa Campesina process. It is also the result of acollective analysis, of discussion of policies, of havingthe possibility—without having gone to Harvard orwherever—of knowing and understanding how govern-ment policies are affecting people in different countries.Our experience in developing this law was also a productof our experience within La Vıa Campesina. But, inLa Vıa Campesina there was no real discussion orserious attention paid to the experiences we had had inMexico. (Personal interview)

Moreover, the fact that not all information is dissemi-nated, combined with a lack of consistent consultation,means less democratic decision-making within the move-ment (Nanjundaswamy, 2000). In a context that isconstantly changing this is a dangerous move. Byconcentrating information and decision-making in fewerhands, La Vıa Campesina risks not reflecting the needs andinterests of its membership. This is also a recipe forcreating distance from the membership and potentiallyfostering conflict within the movement (Vıa Campesina,2003b).La Vıa Campesina’s commitment to information sharing

and broad-based consultation assumes a certain level ofcapacity for international coordination in the OperationalSecretariat. However, the functioning of the OperationalSecretariat in Honduras demonstrated a difficulty inseparating the local from the global. The Vıa Campesinarepresentative and personnel were intimately involved inlocal farm politics and time-consuming party politics. ForDoris Gutierrez de Hernandez (2000), former TechnicalAssistant to La Vıa Campesina, the international move-ment ‘‘cannot and must not only exist out there incyberspace. La Vıa Campesina exists because of its localand national organizations, so our work must also begrounded here locally.’’ However, time spent on localorganizing means less time dedicated to internationalcoordination.Clearly, what is required is a fine balance. To be

representative and accountable La Vıa Campesina mustbe rooted in local realities. Yet, as an internationalmovement it must also engage in broad-based consultation,communication and coordination on a regular basis. Thisis the only way that it can continue to understand and placethe specificity of local situations and local interests at thecenter of international debates.

ARTICLE IN PRESS

9See Desmarais (2004) for a discussion of the gender dynamics within

La Vıa Campesina.

A.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149146

8. ‘‘Lets organize the struggle—land, food, dignity and life’’

As La Vıa Campesina continued to grow and consoli-dating alliances, internal criticisms and conflict becamemore pronounced. These all came to a head at its IIIInternational Conference thus shedding light into someimportant internal struggles within the movement. Subse-quently, and quite rapidly, the movement turned its gazeinward. In June 2003, just over 10 years after itsconstitutive conference, five representatives from each ofthe regions met in Natoye, Belgium, for a StrategyMeeting. Here, the movement took stock of the globalcontext for dissent following the terrorist attacks of 11September, assessed various aspects of internal function-ing, established priorities, and developed strategies forinternal cohesion and organizational strengthening (VıaCampesina, 2003a, b). Participants identified a whole rangeof weaknesses: the lack of consistent information sharingcombined with weak communication and coordinationstressed the movement’s claim to transparent decision-making; concentration of expertise and responsibilityamong too few leaders centralized visibility and power;too few resources for regional and thematic workweakened the movement’s presence and effectiveness atall levels; and, the lack of gender equality and youth clearlynarrowed its vision and analysis (Vıa Campesina, 2003b).The results of this encounter were compiled in a documententitled ‘‘IV International Vıa Campesina Conference:Themes and Issues for Discussion’’ and circulated forfurther debate at the eight Regional Conferences thatwere organized in preparation for its IV Conference(Vıa Campesina, 2004a).

This extensive consultation process was significant for anumber of reasons. First, it decentralized the debateconcerning the movement’s positions, strategies and inter-nal dynamics beyond the international and nationalleadership. Second, the regions were strengthened as eachdeveloped an action plan for future Vıa Campesina workwithin the region and brought new organizations into thefold thus expanding the movement’s perspectives andanalysis (Vıa Campesina, 2004d, e, f, h, i). Finally, thispreparatory process empowered La Vıa Campesina as awhole. Having already had full-fledged discussions at theregional level participants arrived at the IV Conferenceequipped to move ahead in some important areas, bothexternal and internal (Vıa Campesina, 2005).

Under the banner ‘‘Organizing the struggle: land, food,dignity and life’’ the IV Conference took some strongstances against international institutions and policiesdeemed to be detrimental to the survival of family farms(Vıa Campesina, 2004b, c). La Vıa Campesina declared 10September an ‘‘International day of protest against theWTO’’ and vowed to mark the day in commemoration ofLee Kyong Hae with massive mobilizations for foodsovereignty in Seoul, Korea. They also vowed to take tothe streets in Hong Kong at the Sixth MinisterialConference of the WTO and elsewhere to reiterate

demands that the ‘‘WTO get out of Agriculture’’ and thatnational governments promote peoples’ food sovereignty.Having analyzed the FAO’s recent report on agri-biotechnology, La Vıa Campesina declared the institution’sstance a pernicious attack on peasant agriculture anddemanded that the FAO publicly retract its position ofpromoting GMOs as a solution to world hunger. Whilerejecting GMOs, the movement renewed support for itsGlobal Seeds Campaign.The IV Conference also consolidated positions and

action plans on seven key issues: food sovereignty andtrade liberalization, biodiversity and genetic resources,agrarian reform, gender, sustainable peasant agriculture,human rights, and migration and farm workers. However,for La Vıa Campesina one of the most critical issuesremains access to land. After all, a landless peasant cannotgrow food to bring to market or worry about seeds, and asmall farmer needs secure land tenure. Based on thenegative experiences of some countries with the WorldBank’s market-assisted agrarian reform process and on-going human rights abuses related to land struggles, themovement voiced the urgent need for alternatives. It vowedto expand the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform byintegrating a stronger human rights perspective as pro-moted by the Southeast Asian region.Putting into practice a commitment to gender equality

the IV Conference was preceded by the Second Interna-tional Women’s Assembly. For the past 4 years La VıaCampesina has guaranteed gender parity in its leadershipby expanding the ICC to include one man and one womanfrom each of its regions.9 But, as the delegates to theSecond Women’s Assembly emphasized, it is not enough tohave formal gender parity. Given that around the worldagricultural politics remains male-dominated much workstill needs to be done.La Vıa Campesina is also acutely aware of the

importance of youth to maintaining vibrant rural culturesand peasant communities. To increase the participation ofyouth the movement held its First International YouthAssembly that brought together 92 representatives from 35countries. The youth filled the conference with imagina-tion, creativity, song and dance, thus effectively breakingthrough language barriers. Their political message was alsoclearly heard: the youth want to stay on the land, they wantto produce food, they are convinced that ‘‘anotheragriculture is possible,’’ and through La Vıa Campesinathey will organize internationally to make this happen.Interest in La Vıa Campesina continues to grow. The IV

Conference formally integrated Africa as the eighth regionwhich includes organizations from Mali, Mozambique,Senegal, Madagascar and South Africa. La Vıa Campesinais also establishing deeper roots throughout Asia, wherethe majority of the world’s peasants live; the Conferenceintegrated another 42 organizations—over half of these are

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 147

Asian. No doubt, the movement’s presence in Asia willexpand further over the next 3 years since the OperationalSecretariat is now based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Each day of the IV Conference began with one of theregions communicating their history or current strugglethrough theatre, dance or song. These ‘‘mısticas’’ helpedbreak through language barriers and established muchcommon ground as most accentuated the culturalsignificance of seeds and planting ceremonies, a history ofoppression and repression, and a determination to surviveagainst enormous odds. Conference proceedings were ofteninterrupted by delegations rising up and voicing slogans indifferent languages. Panel discussions were complementedwith songs from various parts of the world. Sessions endedwith everyone dancing to Brazilian or East Timor music.These are all clear signs of a movement more ready toembrace diversity, learn from each others’ experiences, beopen to different leadership styles, and prepared tobroaden its geographical, cultural and political presence.

This article has explored some of La Vıa Campesina’saccomplishments, internal weaknesses and recent history.Although internal challenges to inclusive, participatory anddemocratic decision-making persist, the Vıa Campesinahas, and still is, grappling with the tension between rapidinternational expansion and the commitment of participat-ing organizations to represent the interests and concerns oftheir members. La Vıa Campesina’s experience demon-strates that perhaps the most radical resistance toneoliberal globalization can only be constructed throughthe collective and meaningful expression of an alternativeway of being by proudly proclaiming that ‘‘peasants,’’intimately connected to a particular locality, have some-thing to say about how the world should be constructed.Essential to this process is the movement’s ability toincrease the participation and representation of womenand youth, decentralize and expand communication andcoordination, and strengthen the regional bases of themovement.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on my Ph.D. dissertation completedin 2003 (Desmarais, 2003a). The dissertation was revisedand published in 2007 under the title La Via Campesina:Globalization and the Power of Peasants. Many thanks toMichael Woods for organizing the special edition and tothe two reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions. TheInternational Development Research Council and theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada provided financial support for the research.

Appendix. Interviews

Alquisiras Borgos, Rogelio, coordinator of the arts andcrafts section of the Sanzekan Timeni. Personal interview,24 March 2000, Chilapa, Guerrero.

Borras, (Jun) S., former representative of the KMP andfounding member of the Vıa Campesina. Interview bye-mail, 19 March 2001.Carreon Mundo, Marcelo, leader with the Organicion deEjidos de Productores Forestales de la Zona Maya.Personal interview, 29 February 2000, Felipe CarrilloPuerto, Quintana Roo.Gomez, Flores Alberto, executive coordinator of theUNORCA. Personal interview, 6 April 2000, Mexico City.Gutierrez de Hernandez, Doris, technical assistant to theOperational Secretariat of the Vıa Campesina. Personalinterview, 18 September 2000, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.Magana, Guerrero Pedro, former regional coordinator ofUNORCA for Guanajuato. Personal interview, 13 March2000, Mexico City.Nanjundaswamy, M.D., president of the KRRS andregional coordinator of the Vıa Campesina. Personalinterview, 8 November 2000, Bangalore, Karnataka.Olivarrıa Saavedra, Servando, regional coordinator ofUNORCA. Personal interview, 29 April 2000, Culiacan,Sinaloa.Pedersen, Karen, women’s president of the NFU. Personalinterview, 21 June 2002, Cutknife, Saskatchewan.Puttanaiah, K.S., president of the KRRS. Personalinterview, 2 November 2000, District of Mysore.Saragih, Henry, leader with the Federation of IndonesianPeasant Unions. Personal interview, 28 May 2003,Brussels.Suarez, Vıctor, coordinator of the Asociacion Nacional deEmpresas Comercializadoras de Productores (ANEC).Personal interview, 6 April 2000, Mexico City.Verhagen, Nico, technical assistance to the OperationalSecretariat of the Vıa Campesina. Telephone interview, 27February 2003.Wiebe, Nettie, former president of the National FarmersUnion and regional coordinator of the Vıa Campesina.Personal interview, 17 June 2002, Saskatoon,Saskatchewan.

References

Alvarez, S.E., Dagnino, E., Escobar, E. (Eds.), 1998. Culture of Politics

Politics of Culture: Re-Visioning Latin American Social Movements.

Westview Press, Boulder.

Anheier, H., Glasius, M., Kaldor, M. (Eds.), 2001. Global Civil Society

2001. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Anheier, H., Kaldor, M., Glasius, M. (Eds.), 2005. Global Civil Society

2004/5. Sage, London and Thousand Oaks.

Bandy, J., Smith, J. (Eds.), 2005. Coalitions Across Borders: Transna-

tional Protest and the Neoliberal Order. Rowman and Littlefield,

New York.

Bell, B., 2002. Social movements and economic integration in the

Americas. Citizen Action in the Americas Discussion Paper. Centre

for Economic Justice. /http://www.americaspolicy.org/S (accessed

20.07.2004).

Bello, W., 2003. The Road to Cancun: Towards a Movement Strategy for

the WTO Ministerial in Cancun. /http://www.focusweb.org/popups/

articleswindow.php?id+308S (accessed 20.07.2004).

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149148

Borras, S.M., 2004. La Vıa Campesina: An Evolving Transnational Social

Movement. TNI Briefing Series No. 2004/6, Transnational Institute,

Amsterdam.

Campana Global por la Reforma Agraria, 2003. Seminario Internacional

Sobre Reforma Agraria y Genero: Memoria General Del Evento.

Centro de Servicios Agropecuarios (CESA), Bolivia.

Cuadernos Agrarios, 2003. El campo no aguanta mas!. Numero especial,

Mexico D.F.

Desmarais, A., 2002. The Vıa Campesina: consolidating an international

peasant and farm movement. Journal of Peasant Studies 29, 91–124.

Desmarais, A., 2003a. The Vıa Campesina: peasants resisting globaliza-

tion. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Geography, University of

Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Desmarais, A., 2003b.‘The WTO y will meet somewhere, sometime. And

we will be there’. Part of a series prepared for the project entitled

Voices: The Rise of Nongovernmental Voices in Multilateral

Organizations. The North-South Institute, Ottawa, Canada. /http://

www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Voices_WTO_Desmarais.pdfS.

Desmarais, A., 2004. The Vıa Campesina: peasant women on the frontiers

of food sovereignty. Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme

23, 140–145.

Desmarais, A., 2007. La Vıa Campesina: Globalization and the

Power of Peasants. Fernwood and Pluto Press, Black Point and

London.

Edelman, M., 1999. Peasants Against Globalization: Rural Social Move-

ments in Costa Rica. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Edelman, M., 2003. Transnational peasant and farmer movements and

networks. In: Kaldor, M., Anheier, H., Glasius, M. (Eds.), Global

Civil Society Yearbook 2003. Oxford University Press, Oxford,

pp. 185–220.

Eschle, C., 2001. Global Democracy, Social Movements, and Feminism.

Westview Press, Boulder.

Eschle, C., Maiguashca, B. (Eds.), 2005. Critical Theories, International

Relations and ‘the Anti-Globalisation Movement’: The Politics of

Global Resistance. RIPE Series in Global Political Economy.

Routledge, London and New York.

Escobar, A., 1992. Culture, economics, and politics in Latin

American social movements: theory and research. In: Escobar, A.,

Alvarez, S.E. (Eds.), The Making of Social Movements in Latin

America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy. Westview Press, Boulder,

pp. 62–88.

Escobar, A., Alvarez, S.E. (Eds.), 1992. The Making of Social Movements

in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy. Westview Press,

Boulder.

Florini, A.M., 2000. The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational

Civil Society. Japan Center for International Exchange and

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Tokyo and Washing-

ton, DC

FSPI, 2004. Report on National Peasant Day in Indonesia, 24 September.

FSPI, Jakarta.

Gaonkar, D.P. (Ed.), 2001. Alternative Modernities. Duke University

Press, Durham, NC.

Glasius, M., Kaldor, M., Anheier, H., 2002. Global Civil Society 2002.

Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Hamel, P., Lustiger-Thaler, H., Nederveen, P.J., Roseneil, S., 2001.

Globalization and Social Movements. Palgrave, Basingstoke and

New York.

Kaldor, M., Anheier, H., Glasius, M., 2003. Global Civil Society 2003.

Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Khagram, S., Riker, J.V., Sikkink, K. (Eds.), 2002. Restructuring World

Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms.

University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London.

Knauft, B.M. (Ed.), 2002. Critically Modern. Indiana University Press,

Bloomington and Indianapolis.

Long, C., 2005. Food sovereignty and the Vıa Campesina: the evolution of

a counter-hegemonic discourse. Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Depart-

ment of Geography and Environment, London School of Economic

and Political Science.

McMichael, P., 2004. Global development and the corporate food regime.

Paper presented at the Symposium on New Directions in the Sociology

of Global Development, XI World Congress of Rural Sociology, July,

Trondheim, Norway.

Melucci, A., 1988. Getting involved: identity and mobilization in social

movements. In: Klandermans, B., Kriesi, H., Tarrow, S. (Eds.), From

Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research Across

Cultures, vol. 1. International Social Movement Research, JAI,

Greenwich, pp. 329–348.

Melucci, A., 1989. Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and

Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Temple University Press,

Philadelphia.

Menezes, F., 2001. Food sovereignty: a vital requirement for food security

in the context of globalization. Development 44, 29–33.

Mertes, T. (Ed.), 2004. A Movement of Movements: Is Another World

Really Possible? Verso, London and New York.

Miles, A., 2001. Global feminist theorizing and organizing: life-centred

and multi-centred alternatives to neoliberal globalization. In: Hamel,

P., et al. (Eds.), Globalization and Social Movements. Palgrave,

Basingstoke and New York, pp. 140–165.

Nicholson, P., 2001. Un derecho fundamental de los pueblos. En el mundo

120 (noviembre), 48–49.

O’Brien, R., Goetz, A.M., Scholte, J.A., Williams, M., 2000.

Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions

and Global Social Movements. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, UK.

Patel, R., 2005a. International agrarian restructuring and the practical

ethics of peasant movement solidarity. Centre for Civil Society

Occasional Paper Series, University of KwaZulu-Natal, May.

Patel, R., 2005b. Global fascism revolutionary humanism and the ethics of

food sovereignty. Development 48, 79–83.

Petras, J., 1998. The New Revolutionary Peasantry: The Growth of

Peasant-led opposition to Neoliberalism. Z Magazine, October.

Published on-line at /http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/petrasoct98.

htmS (accessed 26.07.2004).

Radcliffe, S., 1990. Multiple identities and negotiation over gender: female

peasant union leaders in Peru. Bulletin of Latin American Research 9,

229–247.

Rosset, P., 2003. Food Sovereignty: Global Cry of Farmer Movements.

Food First Backgrounder, 9, Pubilshed on-line at /http://www.

foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2003/f03v9n4.htmlS (accessed 26.07.

2004).

Stammers, N., 1999. Social movements and the challenge to power. In:

Shaw, M. (Ed.), Politics and Globalisation: Knowledge, Ethics and

Agency. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 73–88.

Starn, O., 1999. Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes. Duke

University Press, Durham.

Starr, A., 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-corporate Movements

Confront Globalization. Pluto Press and Zed Books, London and

New York.

The Economist (US), 2004. From anarchy to apathy. Anti-globalisation

371, 14.

Vıa Campesina, 1993. Mons Declaration: The Vıa Campesina Follow-up

to the Managua Declaration. Reprinted in Proceedings of the II

International Conference of the Vıa Campesina (1996), NCOS,

Brussels.

Vıa Campesina, 1996a. The Right to Produce and Access to Land.

Position of the Vıa Campesina on Food Sovereignty presented at the

World Food Summit, 13–17 November, Rome.

Vıa Campesina, 1996b. Tlaxcala Declaration of the Vıa Campesina.

Reprinted in Proceedings of the II International Conference of the Vıa

Campesina, NCOS Publications, Brussels.

Vıa Campesina, 1998. Vıa Campesina: A Three Year Plan: Strengthening

the Vıa Campesina 1999–2001. Operational Secretariat, Tegucigalpa,

Honduras.

Vıa Campesina, 2000a. Food sovereignty and international trade. Position

Paper approved at the Third International Conference of the Vıa

Campesina, 3–6 October, Bangalore, India.

ARTICLE IN PRESSA.A. Desmarais / Journal of Rural Studies 24 (2008) 138–149 149

Vıa Campesina, 2000b. Bangalore Declaration of the Vıa Campesina.

Declaration at the Third International Conference of the Vıa

Campesina, 3–6 October, Bangalore, India.

Vıa Campesina, 2002. Letter from Rafael Alegria to Bruce

Moore, Coordinator of the Popular Coalition to Erradicate

Hunger and Poverty, 30 June. Operational Secretariat, Tegucigalpa,

Honduras.

Vıa Campesina, 2003a. Draft Discussion Paper on Vıa Campesina

Strategies and Action Plan, 7 February. Operational Secretariat,

Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Vıa Campesina, 2003b. Conclusions of the Strategy Meeting. Operational

Secretariat, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Via Campesina, 2004a. IV International Vıa Campesina Conference:

Themes and Issues for Discussion. Vıa Campesina Operational

Secretariat, Tegucigalpa.

Vıa Campesina, 2004b. Declaration of the Vıa Campesina’s Fourth

International Conference, 14–19 June, Itaici, Brazil.

Vıa Campesina, 2004c. Borrador de la Memoria de la IV Internacional de

la Vıa Campesina, el 14–19 de junio del 2004, Itaici, Brazil.

Operational Secretariat, Jakarta.

Vıa Campesina, 2004d. Informe de la Region Caribe a la IV Conferencia

Internacional de la Vıa Campesina, 27–29 de mayo. Santo Domingo,

Republica Dominicana.

Vıa Campesina, 2004e. Region Norte de America: Acuerdos. Informe del

encuentro regional preparatorio a la IV Conferencia de la Vıa

Campesina, el 7–8 de mayo, Mexico D.F.

Vıa Campesina, 2004f. Vıa Campesina Regional Document—South East

Asia and East Asia: Proposal for the IV Conference of the Vıa

Campesina, May 2004.

Vıa Campesina, 2004g. Vıa Campesina in Geneva at Session of the Human

Rights Commission of the UN. Vıa Campesina Press Release, 4 April

2004, Geneva.

Vıa Campesina, 2004h. Memoria: Encuento Campesino Centroamericano

Preparatoria a la IV Conferencia Mundial de la Vıa Campesina, 26–27

de Marzo, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Vıa Campesina, 2004i. Deliberations of the Regional Southern African

Preparatory Meeting to the IV Vıa Campesina International Con-

ference, 17–18 March, Maputo.

Vıa Campesina, 2005. Draft Vıa Campesina Four Year Plan (2005–8).

Operational Secretariat, Jakarta.

Welch, C., 2000. Marking time with the CLOC: international rural labor

solidarity in the Americas from World War II to the Third

Millennium. Paper presented at the XXII International Congress of

the Latin American Studies Association, 8–10 March, Miami, Florida.

Welch, C., 2001. Peasants and globalization in Latin America: a survey of

recent literature. Paper presented at the XXIII International Congress

of the Latin American Studies Association, 6–8 September, Washing-

ton, DC.

Windfuhr, M., Jonsen, J., 2005. Food Sovereignty: Towards Democracy

in Localized Food Systems. FIAN-International, ITDG Publishing,

Warwickshire, UK.

Ziegler, J., 2003. Report by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food:

Mission to Brazil. United Nations Commission on Human Rights,

59th session, 3 January, E/CN.4/2003/54/Add.1.

Ziegler, J., 2004. Economic, social and cultural rights: the right to food.

Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to

the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 60th session, 9

February, E/CN.4/2004/10.