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Hello everybody, this is Marshall Poe. I'm

0:54

the founder and editor of the New

0:57

Books Network. I've published several academic books

0:59

and one of the things I found

1:01

frustrating is my inability to get them

1:03

picked up in the press. There really

1:05

is no PR service specifically oriented toward

1:07

academic books. Recently, however, I had the

1:09

opportunity to work with a PR firm

1:11

in New York, RLM, on a book

1:14

that I recently published. And I have

1:16

to say, they did a remarkable job

1:18

at a very low price. And this

1:20

got me thinking, I wonder if the

1:22

New Books Network and RLM could provide

1:24

a service that would promote academic books.

1:26

So the folks at RLM and I

1:29

put our heads together and we came

1:31

up with a package. It is specifically

1:33

targeted toward people like you, people who

1:35

write academic books. So if you're interested,

1:37

you should go to the NBN website

1:39

and click publicize your book. And there

1:41

you'll find some information about the services

1:44

that the NBN and RLM are offering.

1:46

What we really want to do is

1:48

provide you with value for money. As

1:50

far as we know, no such service

1:52

exists. This is the first of its kind

1:55

and we really hope it is successful. And

1:57

we hope that it helps you get the

1:59

word out. your academic book. Welcome

2:02

to the New Books Network. Hello

2:06

and welcome to another episode on the New

2:08

Books Network. I'm one of your hosts Dr.

2:10

Miranda Melcher and I'm very

2:13

pleased today because we get to

2:15

talk about a really interesting book

2:17

that I think has a number of

2:19

things really to say about the current, where

2:22

we're at currently, where we might be in

2:24

the future, kind of a lot of things

2:26

about how we got here. And we have

2:28

a fabulous author with us, Dr. Mark Edelman,

2:30

to tell us about the book titled Peasant

2:33

Politics of the 21st Century,

2:35

published by Cornell University Press. And

2:38

the book, I mean, kind of does

2:40

what it says, right, focuses on peasant politics

2:42

in the last two decades or so, to

2:45

understand what these agrarian movements,

2:47

what these transnational agrarian movements

2:50

are doing with rural society,

2:52

with the world's food and agricultural systems,

2:54

and really so much more. So Mark,

2:56

thank you so much for being with

2:58

us on the podcast. I'm delighted

3:00

to be here. Thank you, Miranda. I'm

3:03

delighted to have you. Could you please start

3:06

us off by introducing yourself a little bit

3:08

and explain why you decided to write this

3:10

book? Sure. I'm a

3:12

professor of anthropology at Hunter

3:15

College and the Graduate Center.

3:18

Those are both campuses of the City

3:20

University of New York, the

3:22

largest public urban university

3:25

in the United States. I

3:28

thought I would mention briefly the subtitle

3:30

of the book, Transnational

3:32

Social Movements and Agrarian

3:35

Change, because the focus

3:37

is very much on the

3:39

transnational social movements of

3:42

rural people and new forms

3:44

of solidarity. Reflecting

3:47

on how I came to write the book, I

3:50

think there are remote reasons

3:52

and more proximate ones.

3:55

I came of age intellectually and politically in the late

3:57

1960s and 1960s. 70s

4:01

when peasants were indisputably major

4:03

political protagonists in much of

4:05

the world and important

4:08

agents of social transformation. The

4:11

peasant armies of Vietnam defeated the

4:13

most powerful military machine in history.

4:16

Peasant guerrillas in Angola,

4:19

Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau kicked

4:21

the Portuguese colonialists out of

4:23

Africa. A largely

4:25

peasant army overthrew the white supremacist

4:28

regime in what was then Rhodesia

4:30

and what became Zimbabwe. In

4:33

Latin America, there were various rural

4:35

guerrilla movements, mostly

4:38

demanding redistribution of

4:40

large underutilized landed

4:42

estates, haciendas, and

4:45

dignity for socially excluded sectors

4:47

of the population. Most

4:49

of them did not ultimately fare

4:52

very well, but they were nonetheless very

4:55

much in the vanguard

4:57

of an effort to

4:59

transform society. In

5:02

the 1970s, I traveled a lot in

5:04

Latin America and did

5:06

my first anthropological fieldwork in a

5:08

mountainous indigenous region of Mexico. So

5:11

I got to see up close the

5:14

appalling conditions that the rural poor endured.

5:18

The more proximate reasons

5:20

for writing the book,

5:24

I became involved in studying

5:26

land tenure and then peasant

5:28

movements in Costa Rica and

5:31

Central America. And

5:33

the Costa Rican peasant movements in the late 1980s

5:35

and 1990s were branching out and

5:39

establishing links with similar

5:42

movements in neighboring countries. Of

5:44

course, the Central American region

5:47

is pretty small and that

5:49

was not so

5:51

difficult to do, but eventually

5:54

those networks ramified outwards

5:56

and connected to movements

5:58

in Europe. in India, elsewhere

6:02

in Asia, eventually Africa. So

6:05

after several decades of research

6:07

and writing on transnational agrarian

6:09

movements and new forms of

6:11

solidarity and having gone to

6:13

sites throughout the Americas, Europe

6:15

and South and Southeast Asia,

6:18

I decided to collect in one volume

6:20

a number of essays. Some

6:22

of them were conference papers. Most

6:25

of them were unpublished. A few had

6:27

been published in obscure academic journals. And

6:30

Cornell University Press encouraged me and

6:32

published Peasant Politics of the 21st

6:35

Century earlier this year. Thank

6:38

you for giving us that background. I

6:40

think it kind of helps us understand

6:42

the book and obviously the contextual aspects

6:45

that go into it. And it's in fact on

6:47

that kind of last point that I'd love to

6:49

continue. How did you decide

6:51

what to include in the book? Well,

6:54

I was looking for some

6:56

thematic unity and some

6:59

linking threads. So

7:01

I started with the early history of

7:04

transnational agrarian movements, which goes back to

7:06

the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

7:10

A lot of people think that transnational

7:12

social movements could only emerge in the

7:14

age of the internet. But that really

7:16

isn't true. And if

7:19

one traces the histories of the

7:21

agrarian movements back, they

7:23

connect to first wave feminism,

7:26

to the women's institute movement,

7:28

which was significant in

7:30

Canada and the UK and

7:32

to some extent in the

7:34

United States, to pacifist

7:37

and to agrarian populist

7:39

movements. So I

7:41

started with those early origins.

7:44

I moved on to peasant and farmer

7:46

involvement in the 1999 Seattle protests against

7:50

the World Trade Organization. And

7:53

it's agenda of liberalizing agricultural

7:55

trade. My

7:58

research on transnational. peasant

8:00

politics started in the Central

8:02

American region. So

8:05

I devoted a section to the

8:07

rise and fall and then reemergence

8:09

of agrarian organizations there. Among

8:12

other things, making a point

8:14

that I consider important, which

8:16

is that most social movements

8:18

don't prosper. Many

8:20

of them fail, but often the energy

8:24

that they embodied becomes

8:26

manifest in new efforts and

8:29

in other kinds of movements.

8:33

Food sovereignty is a complicated

8:35

demand that emerged from the

8:37

Central American and Western European

8:40

farmer organizations. And I

8:42

have a somewhat, a kind

8:44

of classic take on

8:46

food sovereignty that

8:48

traces its roots not to

8:51

La Villa Campesina, the big

8:53

transnational peasant organization, as many

8:56

people claim, but to a Mexican

8:58

government program and to the grassroots

9:00

peasants and intellectuals in Central America.

9:04

I did eight years of

9:06

intermittent field work in

9:08

the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

9:11

and in some other places in

9:13

Honduras and Germany and elsewhere on

9:16

the struggle that led to the United

9:19

Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants

9:21

and Other People Working in Rural Areas,

9:24

which is abbreviated UN drop.

9:27

And I had a minor role in

9:29

the negotiations and drafting process, which I

9:31

described in section four of peasant politics

9:33

in the 21st century. The

9:37

last section, apart from the

9:39

conclusion, includes a

9:42

chapter on the pros and cons

9:44

of engaged research and

9:46

another on eight things that

9:48

land grabbing researchers need to keep

9:50

in mind. And among the

9:52

things that I say they need to keep

9:55

in mind is the need to make invisible

9:57

people visible. That is

9:59

to foreground. Peoples who

10:01

the dominant groups and

10:04

urbanites rarely see acknowledge,

10:06

appreciate or understand. A

10:13

very comprehensive overview of the third thank

10:15

you and I. Listeners can probably tell

10:17

we're going to get into some of

10:19

those topics, but there's so much to

10:21

get into that this will be in

10:23

many ways kind of a highlights tour

10:26

of the book, and listeners are very

10:28

much encouraged to read the book itself

10:30

to get all the details, but staying

10:32

at the big picture level for a

10:34

moment farther. Overseas.

10:36

As you described, kind of the

10:38

range of topics there, but also

10:40

this amount of time that this

10:42

research covers. did you have any

10:45

kind of t reflections or insights

10:47

as you put this together either

10:49

or both in terms of like

10:51

the actual content as well as

10:53

maybe about how research in essence

10:55

know Griffin's done. Well,

10:58

oh, certainly. there are a

11:00

number of. The. Selections on

11:02

the bigger picture and the conclusion

11:04

of and I'll mention just a

11:07

few of them have one is.

11:10

Much Social Movements

11:13

research focuses. On

11:16

formally constituted organizations.

11:19

And there's a lot of politics it occurs.

11:23

Outside of formally constituted

11:25

organizations. There. Are

11:27

often people who have been. Marginalized

11:30

from those organizations you don't

11:32

want to join them, who'd

11:35

been expelled, who have quit

11:37

arm and I found. It

11:41

interesting of. As

11:44

much as possible to get in

11:46

touch with those people to get

11:48

their views, because otherwise researchers depend

11:50

a lot on the official spokespeople

11:52

on what the web page says

11:55

and so on, so that would

11:57

be one thinks. Another thing. Is

12:00

it to do research

12:02

on and with highly

12:04

politicized people? Core subjects

12:06

one cannot start from

12:08

a position of neutrality

12:10

are some kind of

12:13

dubious positivist objectivity. Quote

12:15

Unquote. You. Don't

12:17

have to an end and probably should

12:19

not blindly sympathize with a be a

12:21

cheerleader for the people you are studying.

12:23

but they will demand to know where

12:26

you stand and they will do research

12:28

on you whether you know it or

12:30

not and whether you like it or

12:32

not. And I should say it. This

12:34

research on me occurred ah. In.

12:37

The period when I was starting

12:39

his research before the internet was widely

12:41

available in Central America. Before doing

12:43

research on me to see if I

12:45

was okay Soaks, you can imagine what

12:48

it was like as a Us

12:50

citizen to do research and Central American

12:52

the late eighties early nineties when

12:54

they were civil wars and three countries

12:56

in the Us was a key after.

12:59

The personal politics were very, very

13:01

delicate. One

13:03

of the things that I. Argue.

13:06

In the Book and it's

13:08

really I think A T

13:10

take away on for scholars

13:12

who aspire to. Work

13:15

in solidarity with social movements

13:17

is it the biggest contribution

13:20

scholars can make to social

13:22

movements? Is often

13:24

to report the testimony of

13:26

people in the movement's target

13:29

constituencies who are nonetheless and

13:31

interested in skeptical of opposed

13:33

to the movement. Movement.

13:36

Leaders usually don't receive that kind

13:38

of information and they needed to

13:40

be effective. those

13:46

are some very helpful m insights and

13:48

take away so that keys for can

13:50

is giving us that it as big

13:52

a big picture things to think both

13:54

as we go through some of the

13:56

more detailed aspects i'd like to discuss

13:58

with you from the bet Starting

14:00

with the section that

14:02

talks about the Seattle protests against the

14:05

World Trade organizations that took place in

14:07

1999 that you mentioned in your brief overview, the article

14:10

that's in the book is a reflection

14:12

10 years after that. Obviously,

14:15

it's been a while further

14:17

since 1999. If

14:20

you stand in 2024, how

14:22

do you reflect both on the protests

14:24

as well as what you thought about

14:26

the protests 10 years after them? Well,

14:30

I think it's important to start

14:33

with what used to be

14:35

called the GATT, the General Agreement on

14:37

Tariffs and Trade, which

14:39

was the predecessor to the World

14:41

Trade Organization. In

14:44

the last round of GATT

14:46

negotiations, there was

14:48

a move by primarily northern

14:53

developed agricultural exporting

14:55

countries, but also by

14:58

some similar

15:00

countries in the global south to

15:03

include agriculture under the purview of

15:05

what was going to become the

15:07

WTO. And

15:12

this move to include agriculture

15:14

in the Uruguay round of

15:16

GATT and then in the

15:19

WTO was the

15:21

biggest immediate cause of transnational peasant

15:23

and farmer organizing in the late

15:25

1980s and into the 1990s and

15:27

beyond. Why?

15:32

Well, WTO and also other

15:35

so-called free trade agreements,

15:37

bilateral, multilateral or whatever.

15:40

And I say so-called because

15:42

often they were more investment

15:44

treaties and actual free trade

15:46

agreements. These

15:49

changes in the world economy forced all

15:51

maize farmers in the world, for example,

15:53

to compete in a single global market.

15:56

So How was the peasant

15:58

producer in Mexico or Malawi

16:00

or some were going to

16:03

compete with the technologically advanced

16:05

and highly subsidized large farmer

16:07

and Iowa or Nebraska? It

16:09

simply wasn't possible. It wasn't

16:11

easy and millions of people

16:14

gave up and migrated elsewhere,

16:16

sometimes across borders, sometimes to

16:18

urban areas in her own

16:20

countries. So peasants and farmers

16:22

understood the downside of free

16:25

trade and of the rich

16:27

countries agricultural dumping long before

16:29

other sectors. Of society and

16:31

organized against it's dumping. Ah

16:34

is actually a technical term

16:36

in our international power lingo

16:38

that refers to selling products

16:41

abroad ah below the cost

16:43

of production. Why would anybody

16:45

do that? Well, often they

16:48

do it for ah in

16:50

an effort to gain market

16:52

share or sometimes geo political

16:55

advantage and out the United

16:57

States in the European Union

16:59

have. Long been accused by

17:01

developing countries of engaging in

17:04

agricultural dumping, particularly of major

17:06

commodity crops. The other thing

17:08

that I found interesting and

17:10

looking at the Ninety Ninety

17:12

Nine Battle of Seattle against

17:14

the W T O is

17:16

that there's this narrative out

17:18

there. Are propagated

17:20

in part by of people

17:23

who are very enamored of

17:25

narrow views of identity politics

17:28

that the protesters in Seattle

17:30

were overwhelmingly white North Americans

17:33

at. It's not entirely wrong,

17:35

but with that narrative obscures

17:38

is it to a very

17:40

significant delegations of people from

17:43

the global south ah of

17:45

non white on Us and

17:48

and Canadian citizens. as well

17:50

So out the crowd was actually

17:52

more diverse than is usually acknowledge

17:55

side document. That and and and

17:57

the chapter that you mentioned. oh.

18:00

The other thing. That. We

18:02

could think about maybe

18:04

looking back on W

18:06

T O. The protesters

18:08

and Ninety Ninety nine

18:11

of pretty successfully D

18:13

rail that round of

18:15

W T O negotiations

18:17

and stole the momentum

18:19

of the economic liberalisation

18:21

process. They did that

18:23

in part because their

18:25

arguments appealed to developing

18:27

country delegates who are

18:29

very concerned about protecting

18:31

their farmers. And about the. Agricultural.

18:34

And food crisis that

18:36

free trade implied. W

18:39

T O was formally a

18:41

consensus based organization. That

18:43

means that every country has one

18:45

vote. as

18:48

this of course has. Slowed.

18:50

Down the liberalization agenda of the

18:52

W T O which has been

18:55

stalled for a very long time

18:57

and the fact that they're now

18:59

protectionists forces in the rich countries

19:01

that are becoming more and more

19:03

vocal at expressing skepticism about the

19:06

free trade agenda. I

19:08

think that that port tens

19:11

a real slowing down and

19:13

possibly a reversal of the

19:16

economic liberalization. processor. W T

19:18

O was very. Significantly

19:20

responsible for. Yeah,

19:24

a lot of ways and will come

19:26

through and not after is not to

19:29

looking at it as a history lesson,

19:31

right? looking at as very much a

19:33

continual debate and something to keep an

19:35

eye on in the future. So I'm

19:37

I'm pleased that that was in the

19:39

book as hundred million since I'd like

19:41

us that up. Another aspect that you

19:43

talk about in The Birth am you

19:45

mentioned earlier? The Kindest. Perhaps a subsidy

19:47

or miss that transnational agrarian movements or

19:49

transnational social movements and need the Internet

19:52

in order to connect and stock. Of

19:54

mentioned a little bit about how that's

19:56

very much not the case. I think

19:58

there's another mistake you discuss mythic that

20:00

would be also worth posting a bit.

20:03

the idea that the leaders of agrarian

20:05

movements am maybe don't have formal education

20:07

or don't have a kind of impressive

20:09

list of accomplishments and you talk a

20:12

bit about kind of what the reality

20:14

might be and also maybe why that

20:16

miss might be there. Well

20:19

I think in many societies.

20:23

That. Are whole truly.

20:26

Primarily. Urban and

20:28

were urbanites control the

20:30

media and much of

20:32

the public conversation. There's

20:34

a received image of

20:36

peasants and farmers as

20:38

being out. Take your

20:40

pick from the long

20:42

list of pejorative terms

20:44

and many languages refer

20:46

to rural people. Oh,

20:49

And. Early. On and

20:51

the research and Central

20:53

America. I met many

20:55

Central American peasant activists

20:57

who had really impressive

20:59

understandings of trade policy

21:02

and macroeconomics, and sometimes

21:04

these were people who

21:06

had only completed fourth

21:08

grade in their educations.

21:10

What they did have

21:12

was a very extensive

21:14

curriculum of courses are

21:16

sponsored by Ah, by

21:18

unions by peasant organizations.

21:21

By and G O Six and

21:23

I also spoke to some of

21:25

the people who were are running

21:27

these courses and they said his

21:29

people just as smart as we

21:31

are. We can give a very

21:33

high level materials and they get

21:35

it. Part of the reason they

21:37

got it was because they were

21:39

living a crisis of maize, which

21:41

was exacerbated by the Us dumping

21:43

of subsidized corn which was a

21:46

staple crop in most of the

21:48

Central American regions. and this cluttered.

21:50

Local markets in a wreck, their livelihoods

21:52

and they were very clear on the

21:54

say understood it very clearly. So.

21:57

Still leads often expect peasant

21:59

act. This to conform to

22:01

some antiquated image of the

22:04

rural, rustic or bumpkin and.

22:07

Some. Of these people on.

22:10

Really? Didn't fit that image.

22:12

many. I would say some

22:15

of it even gotten university

22:17

education's of summer, dropped out

22:19

some and completed degrees. Oh,

22:21

and and this reflected significant

22:23

prophecies of upward mobility and

22:25

some of the societies in

22:27

the opening up of public

22:29

higher education, too. Bright young

22:31

rural people who took advantage

22:33

of that and became lawyers,

22:36

became agronomists and became ah

22:38

of teachers. And and all

22:40

these other. Things so.

22:42

There's. Something that one sees over

22:45

and over again historically and

22:47

home and contemporary times that

22:49

whenever a peasant activists act

22:51

educated the elites charge them

22:53

with being in authentic So

22:55

this is a very complicated

22:57

dance with the activists have

22:59

to engage and and order

23:02

to on the one hand

23:04

on. Prove. Your authenticity and

23:06

on the other hand to

23:08

mobilize their ah their full

23:10

capacity to debates and to

23:12

make the arguments that they

23:14

want to make. What

23:19

possibilities do you think are opened

23:21

up if we're more aware of

23:23

the flea at the knowledge? more

23:25

these at more nuanced backgrounds rather

23:27

than the kind of assumed a

23:29

pejorative is true. Well

23:31

one of the things that I've

23:33

found are looking. for example, at.

23:36

Some of the founding seekers

23:38

and lobby a Compass see

23:41

Know which is as big

23:43

network of peasant organizations claim

23:45

to represent two hundred million

23:47

people worldwide. I'm. Whether.

23:49

that numbers entirely accurate or not

23:51

i think is hard to tell

23:53

but and looking at and interviewing

23:56

and getting to know some of

23:58

the sounding seegers once that stood

24:00

out was that many of them

24:02

were multilingual. And

24:05

of course being multilingual is

24:07

in my country,

24:09

in the United States, somewhat

24:12

unusual phenomenon for people who

24:15

are not migrants or the

24:17

children of migrants.

24:20

But it isn't that unusual outside of

24:22

North America and a few other places.

24:25

Some of these people had lived

24:27

in exile and had to learn

24:29

languages in other countries. Some

24:32

were the children of marriages

24:34

between people of two different language

24:37

groups or nationalities, quite

24:39

a number of them had lived as

24:41

migrants in other countries. And

24:44

as I mentioned a minute ago,

24:46

some had benefited from society-wide processes

24:48

of upper mobility and managed to

24:50

get university educations. So

24:53

we're not talking about the

24:55

intellectually or geographically isolated peasants

24:58

that still inhabit the elite's

25:00

imagination. And I don't

25:02

see anything problematical about acknowledging these

25:04

realities. They actually are important if

25:06

one is going to understand how

25:08

it is that people from different

25:10

language groups in different countries are

25:12

able to communicate with each other

25:15

in the beginning. I think

25:17

for example of a Basque

25:19

farmer who I mentioned in the book

25:22

with the somewhat unusual name of Paul

25:24

Nicholson. Well, his father was

25:26

Scottish and his mother was Basque

25:28

and he lived in both places.

25:31

And he also spoke French. And he

25:33

was able to serve in the

25:35

very initial years of organizing of La

25:37

Via Campesina as a

25:40

link between the Spanish

25:43

and Portuguese speaking Latin American

25:45

organizations and the French speaking

25:48

and English speaking European organizations.

25:50

And he's a very key

25:52

person, very interesting biography

25:55

in history. I

25:58

would also say, I mentioned before, for the UN

26:00

Declaration on the Rights of Peasants. And

26:04

during the negotiations for the UN

26:06

drop, this peasant expertise

26:08

was very much on display.

26:12

In the beginning of each

26:14

negotiation session, there would be a

26:17

panel and different people would present

26:19

and speak. And there's

26:21

one panel where there's a presentation

26:23

by Jose Escinas, who is a

26:26

world famous plant geneticist, and

26:28

he testified in the negotiations in favor

26:30

of an expanded right to conserve and

26:33

exchange peasant seeds. But

26:35

so did Guy Casper, a

26:37

peasant from France, who was

26:39

at least as knowledgeable and

26:41

had the added advantage of

26:44

deep knowledge derived from cultivating the

26:46

Earth on his farm. So

26:48

there was a lot of expertise there

26:50

that typically is not

26:52

recognized by the credentialed experts,

26:55

by the media, by the

26:57

punditry, by the urban elites

26:59

in general. Well,

27:03

speaking perhaps of the pinnacle of

27:05

the credentialed elites, or at least

27:07

that might be their self-perception, can

27:10

we talk about your involvement with

27:12

the UN drop effort?

27:15

How were you involved in these negotiations

27:17

and drafting processes? Well, maybe

27:19

the first thing I should say

27:22

is that no place has a

27:24

more exaggerated respect for credentialed

27:27

expertise than the United Nations.

27:31

And that was also something that

27:33

was very easy to see repeatedly

27:36

in Geneva. The fact that I

27:38

was a professor somehow was maybe

27:40

more important than it should have been. The

27:43

idea of a UN declaration or

27:45

convention on peasants rights had been

27:48

around since about 2001. And

27:51

it came out of Indonesia primarily

27:54

in the period following the overthrow

27:56

of the Suharto dictatorship in the

27:58

late 90s. and a period

28:01

in Indonesia they referred to as

28:03

Reifurmasi, which was a kind of

28:05

democratic opening and people began to

28:07

talk about human rights. The

28:09

question of whether it was going to be

28:11

a non-binding declaration or binding convention was sort

28:14

of up in the air for

28:16

a number of years. I

28:19

became interested in the

28:21

aftermath of the 2008 World

28:24

Financial and Food Crisis. I

28:27

sensed, I intuited that the rapid

28:29

uptick in the numbers of people

28:32

facing hunger would create an opening

28:34

for the idea of defending peasants'

28:36

rights since about three

28:38

quarters of the newly hungry were

28:41

in rural zones and

28:43

many were ironically small scale food

28:45

producers. So I

28:47

first went to Geneva in 2011 with support

28:52

from the U.S. National Science

28:54

Foundation and I

28:56

went to observe discussions in the Human

28:59

Rights Council's Advisory Committee. The

29:01

Advisory Committee is a think tank of

29:03

experts that makes recommendations to the council.

29:07

It's I think 17 or 18

29:09

experts, sociologists, economists, lawyers

29:11

and so on. And

29:15

at some point I

29:18

had arranged an interview with the

29:20

Bolivian ambassador. This is a few

29:22

years later. Bolivia was managing the

29:24

negotiations in the council and

29:27

I went over to her several hours before just

29:29

to confirm that we were meeting and

29:32

I think she was talking

29:34

to one of her staff at that moment because

29:36

they were speaking in Spanish. I just joined in

29:38

in Spanish. And

29:40

that somehow opened something

29:43

up in our

29:45

relation. And that

29:47

afternoon I ended up having a

29:50

very long joint interview with the

29:52

ambassador Angelica Navarro, a

29:54

really impressive diplomat with

29:56

a master's from LSE, I

29:58

think an environmental. science who

30:01

spoke three UN languages flawlessly.

30:03

She spoke English, Spanish, and

30:05

French, which is

30:07

something that makes it much easier

30:09

to be a

30:11

diplomat in that context. The

30:14

Bolivian vice foreign minister also happened to

30:16

be in Geneva then and was also

30:18

part of the conversation. And

30:21

we hit it off as sometimes occurs

30:23

in interviews in a very nice

30:26

way. And I

30:28

think they considered me, they called

30:30

fiance, trustworthy and possibly a kind

30:32

of resource person. So

30:36

at the first formal negotiating

30:38

session in 2013, they

30:42

called these working groups, intergovernmental

30:44

working groups. And

30:47

the office of the high commissioner invited me

30:49

to present a briefing paper on the definition

30:51

of the rights holders, that is the peasants.

30:54

Since most international legal instruments

30:57

have a definition of the

30:59

rights holders in Article 1.

31:04

And it was the office of the high

31:06

commissioner that formally invited me. But I think

31:09

behind the scenes, it was the Bolivians and

31:11

possibly Fion International,

31:13

which is an NGO that was very

31:15

involved in the process, may have put

31:17

my name forward. But in any case,

31:20

I was asked to present a briefing

31:22

paper on the definition of peasants to

31:26

the Human Rights Council. And

31:28

that paper is Chapter 9 of Peasant Politics

31:30

of the 21st Century. And

31:34

it's probably the key thing to read if you're still

31:36

wondering what a peasant is. Because

31:38

that's not a simple

31:40

thing, it's easily operationalized. And

31:45

later that year, the council

31:48

asked that Navarro and the

31:50

Bolivians redraft the entire declaration

31:52

to make it more consistent

31:54

with accepted language and international

31:56

law. The

31:59

draft that there were, working with

32:01

had been written by the, by

32:03

La Villa Campesino. It

32:05

had been tweaked a bit by the

32:08

Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council.

32:10

And it still had language in

32:13

it that set off alarm bells,

32:15

particularly in the

32:17

European Union and the United States. For

32:22

example, it referred to the right

32:24

to reject outside interference

32:27

in our territories. And

32:29

the right to set the prices

32:31

for what we produce. And

32:34

this kind of language was seen

32:36

as an attack on market economics

32:38

and overly radical. So

32:41

the idea was that this had to come out.

32:45

A lot of UN

32:47

negotiations involve trading

32:51

words that some states

32:53

find objectionable for other language

32:55

that they find less objectionable.

32:57

So the

33:00

ambassador invited a half dozen people who

33:02

were familiar with the issues to assist

33:05

in the redrafting process. And

33:07

they tasked me with drafting the

33:09

articles on rights holders and on

33:12

cultural rights, since I was like

33:14

the only anthropologist

33:16

in the room. And

33:19

English was the language of negotiation.

33:22

And I mention that because

33:25

there's only, there were only two native

33:27

English speakers in the group, so I had

33:30

to do a lot of proofreading also. And

33:35

I was consulted about things like

33:37

what is the difference between persons

33:40

and people? Because

33:44

the European Union for a

33:46

while insisted on using

33:48

the word persons instead of

33:50

people at the

33:53

encouragement of the UK, I'm fairly sure.

33:56

And the idea was

33:58

that persons implied. a

34:00

group of individuals and

34:03

only individuals can be rights

34:05

holders. And people

34:07

had a somewhat

34:11

collectivist odor about

34:13

it and they objected to that.

34:15

So there are issues of

34:17

language that came up in that process

34:19

too. Which

34:24

I found absolutely fascinating so thank you

34:26

for explaining some of the examples here

34:28

as well. Before I get

34:30

into kind of asking you about the big

34:32

picture outcome of all these negotiations, I wonder

34:34

if we can poke at something you've mentioned

34:36

already a little bit further. Not so

34:39

much asking you to kind of in a

34:42

nutshell define peasant, obviously that's done properly in

34:44

the book, but more what

34:46

was it like to define

34:48

and explain what peasant was

34:50

in this kind of

34:52

credential focused environment of the UN

34:55

Human Rights Council? Well

35:02

the setting of the Human Rights

35:04

Council it's this large

35:06

chamber in the Palais de Nacional

35:08

in Geneva and it

35:11

has a kind of peculiar multicolored

35:14

stucco ceiling. You

35:17

can I'm sure find pictures of

35:20

this online. And I saw it

35:22

as a tremendous opportunity to

35:24

address an

35:31

audience that typically one

35:33

doesn't get to address,

35:36

namely diplomats, social

35:38

movements, peasants

35:42

and other people from all

35:44

over the world from rural

35:46

areas. And one

35:49

of the things that I

35:52

had to address very quickly is

35:54

that the term peasant, remember that

35:56

the whole negotiation is in

35:58

English even though people could speak

36:00

in any other UN language. And

36:02

occasionally there would be people speaking in non-UN

36:04

languages who would bring their own interpreters, Koreans,

36:08

for example. But in

36:10

English, the term peasant often has

36:12

a negative valence. Although

36:16

it's rough equivalents in other languages

36:18

tend to be more descriptive and

36:20

neutral. A word like,

36:22

compesino or peso in

36:24

Spanish or French, really means

36:26

just people from the countryside. But

36:31

because English was a language of

36:33

negotiation for UN drop and the

36:35

draft texts weren't even translated to

36:37

other UN languages until near the

36:39

end of the process, it

36:42

was important that the delegations understand

36:44

the historical and contemporary uses of

36:46

the term. And particularly

36:48

why so many rural activists around

36:51

the world employ it as a

36:53

term of self-ascryption. They say very

36:55

proudly, we are peasants. We are

36:57

compesinos, we are peso. So

37:01

one problem was that the

37:04

supposedly equivalent terms in other

37:06

languages, compesino, peso, et cetera,

37:08

aren't entirely coterminous with peasant.

37:12

They simply mean people to

37:14

land, people to countryside, sometimes

37:17

whether or not they're mainly agriculturalists.

37:20

And the negative connotations of peasant

37:23

was a problem in the negotiations

37:25

because the British

37:27

in particular ridiculed the term.

37:31

The UK was still in the EU

37:33

for most of the negotiations and the

37:35

EU frequently voted as a block. Although

37:37

towards the end that

37:40

began to break down a little

37:42

bit. So the Brits invoking their

37:44

native command of English tried to

37:47

persuade EU diplomats from non-Anglophone countries

37:49

that the term peasant was an

37:51

anachronism and inappropriate. And

37:53

at one point it even asked

37:55

a lower level British

37:58

delegate if the UK stands. had

38:00

anything to do with England being

38:02

the first country to abolish or

38:04

destroy its peasantry and the famous

38:06

enclosures of the 17th century and

38:08

after. And he was

38:12

uncharacteristically tongue-tied or maybe

38:14

just being a cagey

38:17

diplomat, and he thanked me

38:19

for giving him something to reflect on. Very

38:26

interesting. Thank you for telling us

38:29

more about that. I

38:31

could ask you so much more about UN Drop, but

38:34

I suppose before we move on from it, could

38:36

you maybe finish that section with

38:38

a brief comment on kind of what you

38:40

think some of the most significant aspects of

38:42

it are? Sure.

38:44

I think the most exciting thing

38:47

about the UN

38:49

Drop negotiations was

38:51

that the rights holders, the peasants,

38:54

played a major role in negotiating

38:56

an international law that applied to

38:58

them, that protected them. The

39:01

only other time that this really happened was

39:03

with the UN Declaration on the Rights of

39:05

Indigenous People. To some

39:07

extent, the Convention on the Elimination of

39:09

All Forms of Discrimination Against Women had

39:12

a lot of input from women's organizations

39:14

too, but in the

39:16

case of UN Drop, organizations

39:19

of rural women, fishers, pastoralists,

39:21

and indigenous peoples were also

39:23

involved, especially in the later

39:25

negotiating sessions. And

39:27

as chair of the negotiations,

39:29

Bolivia did something very unprecedented

39:32

and interesting, which was to

39:35

open up the process so

39:37

that social movements and not

39:39

just NGOs with UN accreditation,

39:41

with eco-soc accreditation, could participate

39:44

in the negotiations. The

39:47

peasants, fishers, and others

39:49

talked about their experiences,

39:52

their understandings, their hopes. They

39:55

didn't want to be fumigated with

39:57

toxic pesticides, for example. They

40:01

posed industrial fishing because it

40:03

destroyed marine environments and their

40:06

livelihoods. These big trawlers

40:08

that come off the coast of West Africa

40:10

and elsewhere and scoop up all of the

40:12

fish. They didn't want

40:14

women rural workers exposed to sexual

40:17

violence and predation in the fields.

40:20

And there are many times I

40:22

saw that diplomats were shocked by

40:24

the eloquence and the erudition of

40:26

the peasant activists. Another

40:30

important thing is

40:32

I point out in chapter 8 of peasant

40:35

politics in the 21st century, even

40:37

the draft UN drop became a

40:40

standard in legal cases on several

40:42

continents. This

40:44

is remarkable because it wasn't international

40:47

law yet and in any case

40:49

it was non-binding soft law like

40:52

all UN declarations are. The

40:54

draft text was also a standard

40:57

that agrarian organizations in Colombia brought

40:59

to the negotiations for the peace

41:01

accords between the government and the

41:04

FARC guerrillas in 2016 ended that country's 50-year-long

41:07

civil conflict. So even

41:10

before it was adopted by

41:12

the General Assembly in 2018 it

41:15

was having an impact and was

41:17

viewed as a legal

41:20

standard. Since

41:23

UN drops adoption by the General

41:25

Assembly in 2018 is continued to

41:27

figure in the Colombian debate over

41:30

the inclusion of campesinos as political

41:32

subjects in the Constitution. And this

41:34

is very near I think to realization

41:37

at this point. I was in Colombia a

41:39

couple weeks ago and people

41:41

are talking as if this is going to

41:44

happen very soon.

41:46

Is there

41:48

anything further you'd like to say on that? Well there

41:50

have been a

41:53

number of other cases. There was

41:55

a case in Honduras where the

41:58

there was a seed law

42:00

passed that was very favorable

42:02

to multinational seed laws and

42:05

the Honduran Supreme Court just in

42:07

the past month or two overturned

42:10

that law invoking

42:13

a number of international agreements

42:15

to which Honduras was a

42:18

signatory including the United

42:20

Declaration the UN Declaration on the

42:22

Rights of Peasants and other rural

42:24

people. Very

42:28

interesting to understand kind of how this was

42:30

developed and what the impacts are already having

42:32

and how it continues to be something it

42:34

sounds like we can look to very much

42:37

in the future. Given

42:39

kind of the current state and

42:42

as well looking ahead you spoke

42:44

a bit earlier about kind of

42:47

what role academics can have in

42:49

supporting transnational social movements.

42:52

Is there anything further you think

42:54

academics, researchers, people like that listening

42:56

to this should think about, should

42:58

reflect on in

43:01

terms of kind of what they can do going

43:03

forward, what they should do going forward, working

43:06

with or researching on

43:08

rural social movements? Well

43:11

maybe the first thing which

43:14

I point out in peasant politics

43:16

of the 21st century is

43:19

that the distinction between social

43:21

movement activists and researchers is

43:25

rather artificial. Activists

43:28

do research constantly

43:31

and often it's very

43:33

rigorous and thorough research

43:36

and maybe the the organization

43:38

that best exemplifies this in

43:40

my opinion is the Canadian National

43:43

Farmers Union which has a very

43:46

brilliant research team.

43:50

The relation between academics like

43:52

me and social movement activists

43:55

is sometimes a bit delicate.

44:00

It has to strive for horizontality

44:03

even though it is shot through with hierarchies.

44:07

So the goals of

44:09

the two groups of academics

44:11

and activists sometimes

44:15

overlap, but they don't coincide

44:17

entirely. So the terms

44:19

and the boundaries of any collaboration

44:21

have to be discussed explicitly and

44:23

agreed on. And in

44:26

some ways that sounds very

44:29

intimidating for the new

44:32

researcher starting a project, but in

44:35

my experience it's easier than it

44:37

sounds if there

44:39

is mutual respect. And

44:42

if the academic's presentation

44:45

of self is genuine

44:47

and consistent in

44:50

different contexts, because

44:52

as I mentioned before, people do

44:54

research on us and

44:56

they really want to know who we are

44:58

and why we're asking all

45:01

of these pesky questions.

45:04

In peasant politics I mention how goals

45:07

may diverge around the publication of research

45:09

results, let's say in the form of

45:11

a book. Movement

45:15

activists in a collaborative relationship with

45:17

a researcher might prefer a publication

45:19

venue that has wide distribution, a

45:22

progressive publisher and a

45:25

low price. And they want results

45:27

quickly. And we

45:29

academics tend to seek prestigious

45:32

university presses and to take our time

45:34

finishing research and writing things up. And

45:36

the presses take a long time to

45:38

review what we write too. So it's

45:40

a very long process. And

45:43

sometimes we publish first in a language that

45:45

isn't a language spoken in the area of

45:47

the research and some academics never publish anything

45:49

in the language of the area. So

45:51

I view that

45:54

as very

45:56

problematical. But

45:58

I think the point is that there's. there's

46:00

no good solution, it will completely satisfy

46:02

all parties in the relationship. I

46:05

quote a Nicaraguan activist in the

46:07

book, Sinforiano Casares, who remarked to

46:10

me, he said, sometimes we feel

46:12

like cows. The researchers come and

46:14

give us a big milking and

46:16

someone else gets to drink the

46:18

milk. So the goal

46:21

is to move beyond that kind

46:23

of extractive model towards something that,

46:26

however lopsidedly, serves both

46:29

parties. I

46:34

think that's a very important takeaway from

46:36

the book and from this impressive body

46:38

of research. Are there

46:40

any other perhaps lessons

46:42

you think people can take away from the

46:45

book, perhaps less in terms of research methods

46:47

and more about kind of

46:49

what 21st century politics is

46:51

doing looks like given where we're

46:53

at in 2024? Well,

46:58

peasants and small farmers spearheaded

47:01

the largest protest movements in the

47:03

early 21st century, bar

47:06

none. We must take

47:08

them seriously. In

47:10

the book I mentioned Ecuador,

47:13

with been major societal

47:15

upheavals sparked

47:17

by peasant activism. India,

47:21

where the largest protests ever in

47:23

human history have occurred in the

47:25

past couple of years against

47:28

the Modi government's effort

47:30

to impose a further

47:32

liberalization of Indian agriculture

47:35

to take away support prices and so

47:37

on. So these are huge

47:39

movements in contemporary times

47:42

and we have to take them seriously.

47:45

Another thing that is important

47:47

to emphasize is that peasants

47:49

and small farmers are knowledge

47:51

producers and sometimes

47:54

offer compelling alternatives for resolving the

47:56

most pressing global issues, including the

47:58

long-term economic crisis. term sustainability

48:00

of our food production systems

48:03

and resolving the climate catastrophe

48:06

because industrial agriculture

48:09

is eating the natural

48:11

capital of the earth and

48:14

it's not replacing it. And

48:17

peasant agriculture takes a different

48:19

approach, in most cases, not

48:21

in every case, to

48:24

long-term sustainability. So we need

48:26

to begin to look

48:28

at the knowledge that is generated

48:31

in these somewhat unconventional places.

48:34

The other thing that it's very

48:37

important to acknowledge is that peasant

48:40

and small farmer voices are

48:43

at a considerable disadvantage considering

48:45

the power of corporate agribusiness

48:48

and the industrial ag lobbies

48:50

and their allied philanthropies, such

48:53

as the Gates Foundation. It's

48:55

a grossly unequal contest.

49:00

But it's also the

49:02

case that peasants have always

49:04

managed to survive despite all

49:07

the neoliberal economists, land grabbers

49:09

and giant commodities brokers that

49:11

surround them. They're

49:13

a class of very tenacious survivors.

49:16

And at some point in, I think early

49:19

on in the book, I quote the Dutch

49:22

sociologist, John de van der Plo,

49:24

who points out that there are

49:26

now more peasants in the world,

49:28

allowing, of course, for some flexibility

49:30

in how you define that than

49:33

ever before in human history. How

49:36

many urbanites anywhere in

49:38

Europe or North America realize

49:41

that? Some

49:46

very good points to take away. Thank

49:48

you for those, in many ways, concluding

49:50

thoughts in our discussion. I

49:52

do have one final question, though. The

49:55

book obviously has, as you mentioned, just come out

49:57

earlier in the year and is

49:59

a collection. of things that

50:01

haven't been published before and things you've been working on

50:03

for a while. Now that it's out,

50:06

is there anything you might be working on or looking

50:08

to work on that you'd like to preview? At

50:13

some point, while this book was still

50:16

in process, really

50:19

beginning in 2016, I suppose, I

50:22

became very concerned with the rise

50:25

of authoritarian populist

50:27

demagogic leaders around the

50:29

world. Trump, obviously

50:32

in my own country, but

50:34

also Erdogan in Turkey, Modi

50:36

in India, Putin, Duterte

50:38

in the Philippines, Orban

50:40

in Hungary, Bolsonaro and

50:43

others. And I

50:45

was involved in two collaborative projects

50:47

that were very meaningful and

50:50

I like to think had some minor impacts.

50:53

One was a collaborative effort to examine

50:55

the role of authoritarian populism, its

50:58

roots in rural areas, its

51:00

impact in rural areas

51:02

worldwide. And this grew

51:04

into a network of a couple

51:07

hundred people. And

51:09

the other focus more narrowly on the

51:11

United States led

51:14

me to write a couple of

51:16

years ago connecting the dots piece

51:19

about how capitalism decimated rural and small

51:21

town communities in the United States. And

51:24

I should maybe mention it even though

51:26

I'm a professor at the City University

51:28

of New York, I've been living for

51:30

the past four plus years in rural

51:33

zones. And

51:35

in writing about the United States, I

51:39

have to acknowledge that the framing idea

51:41

for the analysis derived from a comment

51:43

that I heard many years ago from

51:45

a Canadian farmer activist and

51:48

that I quote in Peasant Politics of

51:50

the 21st Century. Roy

51:53

Atkinson, a founder of the Canadian

51:56

National Farmers Union, which is a

51:58

La Via Campesina member. organization

52:02

asked me what I noticed about

52:04

the towns in rural Saskatchewan that

52:06

were thriving and those that were

52:08

dying. Because in the

52:11

Canadian prairies, as in upstate New York

52:13

where I now live, there are towns

52:15

that are half abandoned, there are others

52:18

that are doing well. The

52:21

ones that were thriving, Atkinson

52:23

pointed out to me, all

52:26

had a cooperative grain elevator and a

52:28

credit union. So these

52:30

were ways that communities could produce

52:32

wealth and circulate it in their

52:34

immediate regions rather than having it

52:37

sucked out by giant corporations and

52:39

financial actors located in faraway cities,

52:42

as has happened in much of the rural

52:44

United States. So I'm continuing

52:47

to focus on that in

52:50

general terms. Most

52:52

immediately, I've

52:55

been asked to write something

52:57

about what

53:00

some people see as

53:03

a fascist threat in

53:05

my country. And

53:07

I've been sketching

53:10

out an analysis that points

53:12

to the way, to a

53:15

key difference between fascist

53:17

politicians and authoritarian populists,

53:20

which is that the latter claimed

53:22

legitimacy based on elections, however corrupt

53:24

or problematic these may be. And

53:27

Trump, in

53:30

contrast, is a wannabe fascist

53:32

who treats electoral processes as

53:34

inconvenient obstacles to staying in

53:36

or returning to power. And

53:41

at the same time, there's research recently

53:43

that I didn't do but that I've

53:45

been reading that

53:48

shows that Americans no longer

53:50

understand the term fascist. It's

53:53

not 1945 anymore when

53:55

virtually every young adult

53:57

male in the United

53:59

States. was a veteran of World War II.

54:02

Many Americans today incorrectly locate

54:05

fascism on the political left,

54:08

and Trump and various right-wing pundits

54:10

have taken to calling Biden a

54:12

fascist. So I'm searching

54:14

for some new language to discuss

54:17

what's really a new variant of

54:20

an old kind of barbarism. Hmm.

54:25

Well, those sound like a bunch of very

54:28

important and interesting projects. So thank you for

54:30

the preview. Best of luck with

54:32

them if they become books. Who knows? Maybe we can

54:34

have you back. But

54:36

in the meantime, of course, listeners can

54:38

read the book. We've primarily been discussing

54:40

titled, as you've said, Peasant Politics of

54:42

the 21st Century, published by Cornell University

54:44

Press. Mark, thank you so much for

54:46

being with us on the podcast. Thank

54:49

you, Miranda. It's been a pleasure.