Biography
Anderson Antonio Silva is Geography PhD student and a CNPq scholarship holder at Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Brazil (2018-2022). He has a Master’s degree in Geography from São Paulo State University (UNESP). He was Professor (2007-2016) at the Faculty of Technology of Presidente Prudente in São Paulo State. He is currently a member of the research team on land grabbing at Rede DATALUTA Brazil and contributes with Matopiba Observatory.
Abstract
Agrarian extractivism, authoritarian populism and the political economy of agroecology in Brazil
The coronavirus pandemic, the result of the civilizational crisis generated by the convergence of crises produced by the world system, has generated much speculation about the creation of a new global public agenda, raising the question if this agenda will produce some subversive effect on the governance of the land market. and on capitalist accumulation strategies, based on agrarian extractivism. Based on the continuity of Brics cooperation, especially between Brazil and China, fundamentally based on trade in agricultural commodities, the argument is that it is not possible to confront authoritarian rural populism significantly without questioning the political-economic foundations of its development. Actions of solidarity of agrarian movements (in the donation of food on the periphery of Brazilian cities) will be examined, discussing the concept of food sovereignty dependent on the state, and that of food autonomy based on the articulation of community experiences of the movements. Centered on the need to invest in the construction of a political economy of agroecology, Karl Polanyi’s thinking will be examined, focusing on the role of movements as political subjects in the process of social change. The article advocates that agroecology, seen since Polanyi’s thought, returns, both to peasants and to society, the control of social relations, kidnapped by the belief of the free market. This belief separated from the others social institutions, until become a sphere autonomous, “self-adjusting”, which intends to dominate the rest of society by transforming labor, land and money into merchandise.
Affiliation: Federal University of Goiás