Agrarian social movements are at a crossroads. Although these movements have made significant strides in advancing the concept of food sovereignty, the reality is that many of their members remain engaged in environmentally degrading forms of agriculture, and the lands they farm are increasingly unproductive. Whether movement farmers will be able to remain living on the land, and dedicated to alternative agricultural practices, is a pressing question. In this talk, Dr. David Meek will explore this question through a discussion of his recent book The Political Ecology of Education: Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Politics of Knowledge (2020; West Virginia University Press, Radical Natures series; see https://wvupressonline.com/node/845). His presentation will examine the opportunities for and constraints on advancing food sovereignty in the 17 de Abril settlement, a community born out of a massacre of landless Brazilian workers in 1996. Based on immersive fieldwork over the course of seven years, Meek’s ethnography makes the provocative argument that critical forms of food systems education are integral to agrarian social movements’ survival. While the need for critical approaches is especially immediate in Brazil’s Amazon, Meek’s presentation will speak to the burgeoning attention to food systems education at various educational levels worldwide, from primary to postgraduate programs. His talk will call on us to rethink the politics of the possible within these pedagogies.
Events
Educating for Food Sovereignty: Insights from Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement
David Meek, University of Oregon https://intldept.uoregon.edu/profile/dmeek/
Agrarian social movements are at a crossroads. Although these movements have made significant strides in advancing the concept of food sovereignty, the reality is that many of their members remain engaged in environmentally degrading forms of agriculture, and the lands they farm are increasingly unproductive. Whether movement farmers will be able to remain living on the land, and dedicated to alternative agricultural practices, is a pressing question. In this talk, Dr. David Meek will explore this question through a discussion of his recent book The Political Ecology of Education: Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement and the Politics of Knowledge (2020; West Virginia University Press, Radical Natures series; see https://wvupressonline.com/node/845). His presentation will examine the opportunities for and constraints on advancing food sovereignty in the 17 de Abril settlement, a community born out of a massacre of landless Brazilian workers in 1996. Based on immersive fieldwork over the course of seven years, Meek’s ethnography makes the provocative argument that critical forms of food systems education are integral to agrarian social movements’ survival. While the need for critical approaches is especially immediate in Brazil’s Amazon, Meek’s presentation will speak to the burgeoning attention to food systems education at various educational levels worldwide, from primary to postgraduate programs. His talk will call on us to rethink the politics of the possible within these pedagogies.
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