Rita Calvário

Los y las neorrurales son personas sin experiencia
agraria que migran de la ciudad al campo
para adoptar un estilo de vida agrícola o artesanal
radicalmente nuevo. Sus motivaciones
están vinculadas a la búsqueda de una forma
de vivir más simple, autosuficiente, autónoma
(libre del trabajo asalariado y del mercado),
próxima a la naturaleza y ecológica.

This paper contributes to debates about the potential of re-peasantization and its contribution to food sovereignty with a case study from the global North, where such questions are relatively under-studied. I examine how Euskal Herriko Nekazarien Elkartasuna (EHNE)-Bizkaia, a Vía Campesina member organization from the Basque Country (Spain), advances food sovereignty through re-peasantization. I also analyze the motivations of new peasants engaged in agroecology, their understandings of food sovereignty, and the challenges that they face. Using a Gramscian political ecology framework, I argue that whereas re-peasantization contributes to a shift from corporatist to counter-hegemonic struggles, the political-economic and biophysical contexts structure agroecological production in ways that limit the extent to which new peasantries can become 'agents of their own history'. I conclude that closer attention to peasants' messy practices of making a living is needed to address questions of political agency.

Alternative economies are commonly depicted as a product of the will of individuals or groups, or as a spontaneous and cumulative reaction to an impact, be it crisis or neoliberalism more generally. Their fate is to transform the world, either gradually or through the clash of models. On the other hand, critics usually see them as a product of neoliberalism, or even capitalism. They are condemned thus to co-optation and marginality, or they just embody neoliberal forms, practices, and subjectivities. In this thesis, I chart an alternative explanation for why and how alternative economies emerge and develop, as well as provide a different lens through which to understand their transformative potential.
I investigate these questions by looking at alternative food economies in the post-2008 economic crisis. In order to gain a deep comprehension of real-life events embedded in context, I base my research on two case-studies: the case of new agroecological ‘peasants’ in the Basque Country (Spain), and that of ‘no-middlemen’ solidarity food distributions in Greece. Drawing on fieldwork research, on analytical tools derived from political ecology and food sovereignty literatures, and on Bensaïd’s and Gramsci’s insights on radical politics, this thesis deals with important conceptual and practical questions regarding resistance to neoliberalism, emancipatory strategies, and political agency.
My main argument is that alternative food economies can be an integral part of activist strategies engaged in struggles over hegemony, which seek to produce critical and active subjects and, ultimately, move the subaltern to a position of leadership. In the Basque Country, denaturalizing hegemonic ideas and practices regarding agribusiness and normalizing peasant alternatives is a key focus of small farmers’ strategy of building alliances and a large social movement fighting for food sovereignty. In Greece, tackling farmers’ difficulties and food insecurity through ‘solidarity’ is a strategic step towards advancing counter-austerity ideas and practices to engage people in ‘practical-critical’ activity.
Whereas alternative food economies may provide opportunities to politicize politics, create spaces of politicization and self-organization of the subaltern, and generate learning processes on how society-nature relations can be organized differently, they also face challenges, as they are not outside (because there is no outside to) capitalism. The difficulties faced by agroecological producers call us to pay more attention to the relation between working-time and free-time for politics in alternative models. Efforts to develop alternatives must focus on providing the subaltern with the material and subjective conditions that enable them to become ‘agents of their own history’. A politics that tackles social reproduction needs and builds a ‘politics of hope’ is therefore relevant. Indeed, environmental struggles may involve broader social and political goals, beyond concerns over access to resources and the environment or securing livelihoods; this shows the productive relationship between diverse struggles.