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The MST and the EZLN Struggle for Land: New Forms of Peasant Rebellions
Author(s) -
VERGARACAMUS LEANDRO
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0366.2009.00216.x
Subject(s) - peasant , livelihood , feudalism , autonomy , latin americans , subsistence agriculture , political economy , sociology , land reform , political science , development economics , economics , law , politics , agriculture , history , archaeology
In this article, the author reviews some of the conclusions of the literature on peasant rebellions in the light of current land struggles of the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico. The author argues that conventional explanations of peasant rebellions are inappropriate for the analysis of current land struggles in Latin America in the midst of the process of neoliberal globalization. Neither struggle can be characterized as ‘quasi‐feudal’, nor as conservative reactions, but instead should be interpreted as attempts to create a basis for self‐subsistence and autonomy. Consequently, the author proposes Marx's concept of alienated labour as an alternative explanatory concept, because it highlights one of the main objectives of the members of the MST and the EZLN, which is the control over their livelihood through a struggle for their re‐peasantization.