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This paper discusses autonomy as a set of practices that result in the production and reproduction of resources that allow for self‐organization. We define autonomy as a social construct that refers to the self‐organizing capacity of people, communities, and movements. Such capacity assumes both resources and agency. In that vein, our conceptualisation implies that autonomy is a relational concept: It can only emerge when and where struggles that aim at going beyond dependency (i.e., nonautonomy) concretely exist. Autonomy is three‐pronged, involving a set of goal‐oriented activities, a distantiation from capital, and the agency of social actors. Intertwined with these levels are peasant movements that have the capacity to develop and implement a political agenda that is not overshadowed and/or dictated by external influences. The paper illustrates this intertwining with the case of the Circuito (O Circuito), a Brazilian peasant movement that has constructed and operates an extended farmers' market and which simultaneously transforms farming practices. The Circuit is the outcome of collective action and shows the potential of multilevel performance of several actors engaged in concerted actions. In the conclusion, we suggest that the Circuit represents autonomy based on commonly pooled resources as well representing a countermovement to the destructive dynamics of food empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper appraises Pastoral Land Commission's (CPT) practice of documenting the violence and conflict that has taken place in the Brazilian countryside since 1975. Based on 10 interviews with CPT National members and other primary sources, the paper conceptually explores the organisations' subversive practice of compiling and publishing data on this type of violence, hence producing emancipatory knowledge that supports progressive agrarian change. Although the state benefits from having such knowledge obscured, CPT's efforts shine a light on conflicts in the countryside and frame them as such. Documenting as a technology of resistance has been crucial for Brazilian social movements and scholar‐activists and has significant potential for reproduction elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of capitalism in Brazil have been traditionally overlooked by the literature on its developmental trajectory, either considered as an outcome of colonial exploitation or described through a broad notion of 'bourgeois revolution'. The recent discussion between the consequentialist interpretation of bourgeois revolutions and the Political Marxist critique of the bourgeois paradigm allows for a reassessment of these narratives, with a stronger emphasis on the specific disputes of early‐20th‐century Brazil. In this paper, I engage with Florestan Fernandes as the main representative of the bourgeois paradigm within Brazil. As an alternative, I present a reassessment of the 'capitalist transition' understood as a set of social property relations organised around market dependency. By tracing this form of market dependency through Brazilian historiography, I present a narrative that posits the development of capitalism in Brazil through the nonrevolutionary rise of an industrial bourgeoisie during the Old Republic and the competing strategies of declining (British) and rising (US/Germany) financial imperialism in the 1920s. Therefore, it highlights the role of (geo)political disputes by pointing towards the policy changes introduced by the Vargas regime in the 1930s as a key factor in the transition to capitalism in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the agrarian policies of the governments of Presidents Lula (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) in the light of the contradiction between the historical support for land reform and agrarian social movements by the Workers' Party (PT) on the one hand, and the PT's more recent electoral and political alliances with agribusiness on the other. After more than a decade of progressive administrations, key government programmes have only accounted for marginal gains and in some cases setbacks, symbolized by the failure to expand the expropriation of new land and settle landless families on an adequate scale. The collapse of those alliances and 2016's impeachment process of President Rousseff marks the end of that cycle, highlighting strategic and policy failures. The paper examines government actions, the historical causes and roots of land conflicts, and struggles for land and territory, as well as the difficulties of mobilization. The paper focuses upon political disputes, particularly new processes of criminalization, economic disputes, surrounding the role of agribusiness, and the challenges related to struggles for land and territorial rights in a situation ruled by a progressive party and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the national and transnational character of mobilization against GM crops in India, South Africa and Brazil in the ten-year period to 2005. By examining the contexts and practices of mobilization across the three countries, and in particular the complex, often fraught, local and global connections, the paper examines the diverse mobilizations that have occurred. The paper argues that to understand these processes, particular national political and economic contexts must be appreciated, alongside how the GM debates articulate with other foci for activism and the complex and often fragile nature of alliances that make up activist networks. The paper shows how the debate about GM crops has become a much wider one: about the future of agriculture and small-scale farmers, about corporate control and property rights and about the rules of global trade. In sum, a debate not just about the pros and cons of a particular set of technologies, but about politics and values and the future of agrarian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of biotechnology is part of a global process of structural change in agriculture characterized by an increased integration of world agriculture with high corporate control. However, as the legal competence to allow the planting and trade of genetically modified (GM) crops commonly lies at the level of the nation state, this remains strategic in the politics of GM crops, both for actors promoting the technology and for social movements struggling against it. This paper illustrates this argument with an analysis of the struggles over GM crops in Brazil. It shows how the implementation of a food regime based on biotechnology, corporate control and neoliberal globalism depended on the state and was a contested process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) has been conceptualized out of the pro-market critique of classic state-led agrarian reform. The pro-market model has been implemented in Brazil, Colombia and South Africa, where its proponents have claimed impressive success. But close examination of the empirical evidence puts into question the basic theoretical and policy assumptions and current claims of MLAR proponents. The same model is no more likely to work elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Farmers' Rights in international law is closely related to the "seed wars" at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) during the 1980s. Recognizing the plant innovations of farmers everywhere, these rights represented a countervailing measure against increasing pressures to protect commercial plant breeders' rights around the world. Nearly three decades later, the intellectual property rights of plant breeders, internationally recognized and legally binding, are stronger than ever, while Farmers' Rights are facing increasing threats from the continuing spread of industrial agriculture and biotechnologies. The present article seeks to make two contributions: first, embedding the emergence of Farmers' Rights in a historical analysis, it conceptualizes them not simply as a new category of rights, but as a specific manifestation of the conflictual entwinement of capitalism and plant genetic resources fomented in the geopolitical context of the 20th century. Second, focusing on India and Brazil, it analyses the different manner in which the state in both has played a crucial role in restricting the real freedoms of traditional farmers. While farmers' "interests" are routinely preyed upon to justify various policies, their overall effect promises to deepen the ongoing process of farmers' dispossession and separation from their basic means of production: the seed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rush for land has provoked diverse policy responses from host countries. While some governments are facilitating 'land grabs' within their borders, others have restricted land acquisitions by foreigners. Drawing from the Brazilian case, I argue that such restrictive regulations may be limited in their effectiveness because they apply a state-centric geopolitical logic to a threat that is largely de-territorialized and financialized. The Brazilian government reacted to fears about land grabbing by reinstating a legal framework from the 1970s that focuses on the threat that foreigners pose to national sovereignty. This measure dampened international enthusiasm for Brazilian land, but it also triggered companies to begin searching for legal ways to get around the restrictions, often by exploiting the mismatch between the fungibility of global capital and the rigidity of the foreign/domestic dichotomy. I suggest that the semi-permeability of the new restrictions may present an opportunity for the Brazilian government to balance its conflicting commitments to smallholder farmers and export-oriented agribusiness. Regulations focused on foreign threats may be politically effective even as they impose an outdated conceptual framework on a far more complex reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In horticulture contemporary globalization is associated with (at least) two connected processes – the concentration, centralization and expanding reach of global retailers and the emergence of numerous new sites of export horticulture specializing in fresh fruit and vegetable production aimed at metropolitan markets. Whilst there have been numerous studies about developmental impacts, conditions of labour, and producers' upgrading strategies within this new context, few studies give much, if any, space to explaining and analyzing the processes through which these new regions have come into being. This article provides a detailed account of the emergence and global integration of one of these new sites – the São Francisco valley grape branch in North East Brazil, within the context of the wider regional fruiticulture sector. It focuses on state activities and incentives, the provenance of grape producers and their organizations, and grape branch composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]