Beyond simplistic narratives

Dynamic farmers, precarity and the politics of agribusiness expansion

Bibliographic Data

ID2285995
AuthorsEnrique Castañón Ballivián (0000-0003-4443-6845, Institute of the Americas University College London London UK, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume24
Issue4
Publication date2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/joac.12602
OpenAlexW4401338047
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited62

Agribusiness expansion is usually framed around two competing narratives. On the one hand, advocates present it as a promising vehicle to modernise agriculture and integrate small farmers into global value chains. On the other hand, critics denounce it as a top-down corporate assault to monopolise agriculture and dispossess peasants of land. Despite their differences, these contrasting narratives tend to share a reductionistic capital-centric bias as they are mainly focused on the alleged benefits/dangers of the 'arrival' of agribusiness corporate capital. Although simplistic, these narratives have been politically effective in shaping the public debate and thus should be exposed to critical challenge. Drawing on my ethnographic research in eastern lowland Bolivia, I show how both narratives fail to capture the complexity of an actually existing agribusiness structure. My grounded analysis of the process of agrarian change focuses on the changing labour dynamics among campesinos who have striven to become prosperous soy producers. Faced with bleak prospects and structural insecurity, they have been articulating a political practice around the notion of precarity. I argue that this emerging politics from below deserves more attention as an important terrain of political struggles of classes of labour

Agrarian society · Agribusiness · Agriculture · Capital (architecture · Ethnography · Geography · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Precarity · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law

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