Institutionalizing economies of opposition: explaining and evaluating the success of the MST's cooperatives and agroecological repeasantization

Dominant conceptions of social movements consider their constitutive feature the disruption of order, not practices around building it. In this paper, I challenge this notion by analyzing the Landless Workers' Movement (MST)'s relatively successful efforts to institutionalize the practices of agricultural production developed by its members in cooperatives and agroecology. Through this analysis, I show that the movement's administration of a democratically managed form of agricultural production exemplifies a unique form of social movement resistance – namely, what I call self-governmental resistance. Rather than reformist or revolutionary contention, self-governmental resistance – performed by movements like the MST – redevelops state policies by vying for and often taking control over the design and implementation of agricultural production.     

Lula's assault on rural patronage: Zero Hunger,ethnic mobilization and the deployment of pilgrimage

This paper explores the Workers’ Party government's attempt to use anti-poverty policy to disrupt rural patronage, and the implications of this effort for theories of patronage. I argue that state officials and race-based activists implementing President Lula's flagship ‘Zero Hunger Program’ (2003–2005) turned mundane program exercises into pilgrimage rites in an effort to build lateral solidarities among Afro-Brazilians and undermine their vertical patronage alliances. The partial success of such efforts suggests that there are circumstances in which vertical and horizontal alliances are compatible, and that investigating this compatibility entails consideration of local categories of exchange.     

Theory and practice of labour-centred development

This article outlines the theory and practice of labour-centred development (LCD). Much development thinking is elitist, positing states and corporations as primary agents in the development process. This article argues, by contrast, that collective actions by labouring classes can generate tangible developmental gains and therefore that, under certain circumstances, they can be considered primary development actors. Examples of LCD discussed here include shack-dwellers’ movements in South Africa, the landless labourers’ movement in Brazil, unemployed workers’ movements in Argentina and large-scale collective actions by formal sector workers across East Asia. The article also considers future prospects for LCD.     

重构中国粮食安全的认知维度、监测指标及治理体系

判断一国粮食安全的实现程度,要基于对粮食安全的清晰认知。粮食安全问题易被简化为粮食总产量问题。上述概念相关但非同一命题。国际粮食安全认知维度及演进显示,粮食安全是一个系统,从横向看,它包含可供量、粮食获取、粮食利用(如营养安全)与稳定性四个维度;从纵向看,它包括宏观、中观与微观(如家庭获取能力)三个层面。一个完备的国家粮食安全监测指标体系也应与这四个维度、三个层面相对应。当前中国粮食安全政策与监测主要强调国内供给总量安全,属于可供量维度与宏观层面的交集;其他维度则较为单薄,尤其是微观层面的粮食获取维度以及粮食利用维度下的营养安全。借鉴巴西跳出"粮食生产大国无粮食安全之虞"的认知窠臼、直面其粮食安全严峻态势、进而推行影响深远的"零饥饿"计划、取得显著成效的经验,中国应加快构建一套比较全面的、符合当前经济、社会和农业发展现状的粮食安全认知、监测及治理体系,即将粮食安全治理重心从宏观转入宏观、中观、微观并重,构建一套全面的粮食安全监测指标体系以及建立跨部门的粮食安全治理体系。     

The spectre of Haiti: structural antiblackness,the far-right backlash and the fear of a black majority in Brazil

Abstract

This article situates the far-right backlash in Brazil within the larger Latin American context, including its colonial legacy, leftist governments’ failure to deliver promises of inclusion, and the US–China geopolitical dispute over the region’s strategic natural resources. By situating Bolsonaro’s electoral victory within these dynamics, our analysis presents an alternative to two common perspectives. First, studies of the region’s political moment and of Brazilian society in particular do not pay enough attention to institutional and everyday racism, and instead focus mostly on comparative analysis of governmental policies and social class dynamics. Second, critical perspectives that take into account racial inequalities are often not attuned to structural dynamics of gendered antiblackness, and instead present racism as a broad set of practices that negatively affect non-white people in related manners. Our context-specific analysis of the electoral reemergence of the far right in Brazil aims at contributing to an understanding of persistent dynamics of racial inequality within the region as part of a long, enduring and foundational odium of Black people.     

Post/Colonial Reconfigurations. The Disregarded,Renewed Arrival of Spaniards in Rio De Janeiro

Abstract

Given the renewed arrival of Spanish migrants in Brazil since 2008, I analyze how post/colonial power relations are re/configured and contradictions produced when legal and economic precarity question status hierarchies based on origin, race, and class. Brazil currently hosts the largest number of illegalized Spaniards worldwide. Illegality and precarity contest the favorable effects of nearly unconditional whiteness in Brazil and globally racialized, colonial power hierarchies. Derived from 2.5?years of ethnographic fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro since 2014, my interlocutors’ trajectories show how they struggle with and embrace the urban fabric and its structural post/colonial configuration.     

Economies of scale and Brazilian local government expenditure: evidence from the State of Paraná

ABSTRACT

Controversy surrounds local government reform, particularly efforts directed at reducing the number of local authorities to secure economies of scale. We examine whether economies of scale exist in local government outlays by analysing the expenditure of 398 municipalities for the Brazilian state of Paraná using a 16-year panel dataset covering the period 2002–2017. We find evidence that municipal expenditure is characterised by substantial scale economies. However, given the strong correlation between population size and population density, it is important to ascertain whether the influence of population size on municipal expenditure is due to variations in population density or not. When local government areas are divided into sub-groups based on population density, evidence of scale economies remains with the majority of councils operating below optimal size. Municipal consolidations may thus lead to lower per capita expenditure.     

Broadening ‘business’, widening ‘peace’: a new research agenda on business and peace-building

ABSTRACT

What role does business play in peace-building and conflict reduction? This special issue tackles this complex question, exploring varied business efforts to bring peace through six rigorous qualitative cases in Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Somaliland, Brazil, Guatemala and El Salvador. Three main findings cut across this issue. First, local context is paramount to success; there is no one universal formula that a regulator, business or peace practitioner aiming to advance a business agenda for peace can employ for operational success. Second, rather than compartmentalising ‘peace’ into projects that often carry ‘win-lose’ consequences for local communities, business-peace projects must first understand who they are empowering so that they do not unwittingly make the conflict worse. Third, investment and access are deeply intertwined in fragile and conflict-affected areas, and business-peace projects that simply try to improve business access typically exacerbate inequalities favouring elite actors. We close with a discussion on how to take the business and peace-building agenda forward with scholarship and policy, stressing that business-peace projects must be assessed at the societal and not project level if their impact is to be truly beneficial for a political economy of peaceful development.     

In search of identity: The field of forensic anthropology in Brazil—Profession and practice

The existing divergencies in the development of forensic anthropology (FA) around the world justify an analysis of its situation in each country/region. Our objective is to report information gathered directly from professionals acting in the field of forensic anthropology in Brazil, with the aim of highlighting the challenges of the discipline and contributing to its advancement. The research consisted of personal visits in Medico‐Legal Institutes (IMLs) in nine states of the country and semi‐structured interviews with 16 professionals. Detailed analysis of the Results suggests the field of forensic anthropology, despite the engagement and dedication of its professionals, cannot yet be considered a well‐structured discipline across the country. The academic background of professionals is highly heterogenous. The applied methods vary, and common protocol is not always followed. The demand highly exceeds the available human resources. The lack of comparative material Results in high percentage of cases remaining unsolved. Important divergences exist in terms of infrastructure and professional resources between the states. The limited cooperation between different IMLs and between different sections of the same IML—together with a general disbelief in the usefulness of anthropological examination in forensic cases—hampers FA’s development. There is a great openness for scientific collaboration and an abundance of material for research. Our research demonstrated structural, political, and academic limitations that affect the FA field in Brazil. However, the expertise and dedication of professionals point to human potential as the chief strength of this discipline that supports and enables research, providing high‐quality services in a challenging context.     

Changing Narratives of Race and Environment in the Nineteenth‐Century and Early‐Twentieth‐Century Brazilian Amazon

The Amazon has been the object of numerous reflections upon the relationship between the natural environment and the categories of human society. This article analyses Brazilian writers who considered the relations between space and race over the course of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It focuses on João Henrique de Mattos, José Veríssimo and Euclides da Cunha, placing them in relation to each other and within local, national and international discourses on race, nature and development. Its aim is to examine how a racialised geographical understanding of the Amazon changed over the course of the nineteenth century and was tied to Brazilian nation‐building.