Territorial restructuring and resistance in the Americas

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, social movements for agrarian reform have struggled to keep up with the profound changes in the structures of land and agricultural production sweeping the continent. In Latin America, what once was a struggle for redistribution, dignity, and social justice in the context of national liberation, has shifted towards a model of “market-led land reform” focussed on productivity, privatization and opening land markets. In the U.S., there have been some important waves of agrarian resistance, but a sense of American exceptionalism has limited agrarian reform discourse from shaping policy, especially during and after the Cold war when it became associated with communism. Today, in both the global North and South, land grabbing and the financialization of land contribute to processes of territorial restructuring and pose broad threats to rural communities, farmers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, farmworkers, peasants, and people of color.

Keywords

• land grabs
• territorial restructuring