Thread by @PLAASuwc

We have reached the final day of the Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference. We’ve enjoyed the rich debates that have taken place since Monday. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Today’s theme is - Towards Agrarian Climate Justice: Strengthening Alliances for an Anti-Capitalist Approach to Climate Change. We’re excited to hear from our speakers.

Don’t forget to engage with today’s thread by liking, sharing and retweeting. Join the conversation on #ClimateAgrarianJustice. @TNInstitute @Peasant_Journal @rosaluxstiftung

Today’s plenary conversation is chaired by Ricardo Jacobs from @Peasant_Journal. Speakers: @diana_ojedao, Mamadou Goïta (@ZGoita), @KasiaPaprocki and @KatieSandwell @TNInstitute.

Ricardo reminds us that today's plan is to focus on reflecting on how to change the world and the vision for future society#ClimateAgrarianJustice

Ricardo asks the speakers: what is an anti-capitalist approach to climate change and agrarian justice and who would be the social forces or groups to enforce this? #ClimateAgrarianJustice

"We need to understand the ways in which we suggest capitalist solutions. One thing I want to pint out is how we tend to reproduce these capitalist narratives of solution. Social reproduction - needs to address issues of nature, care and that which sustains life." - Diana Ojeda

"One of the key things when we talk about where we can find change and who will do the changing. It is not about the green or nature-based solutions but about what sustains life on a daily basis." - @diana_ojedao

(1) Mamadou Goïta (@ZGoita) tackles the question and says the anti-capitalist approach is how to stop the false solutions but also bring back the alternatives and create conditions for it to happen. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

(2) We need to change the paradigm from shifting away from accumulation to how wealth is redistributed, eg. carbon & fossil fuel, climate variabilities. - Mamadou Goïta (@ZGoita)

(1) @KasiaPaprocki says development agencies have called shrimp aquaculture a solution to climate change, an old capitalist trope, that agriculture is not viable for farmers to move to cities, which are at the heart of critical agrarian studies.

(2) Movements and farmers are challenging this shrimp aquaculture by going back to flood-plain agriculture. This is an anti-capitalist political move. - @KasiaPaprocki #ClimateAgrarianJustice

@KatieSandwan says the anti-capitalist approach differs from green capitalism and sustainability models aimed at sustaining capitalism and capitalist accumulation. #ClimateAgrarianJustice @TNInstitute @Peasant_Journal

Work needs to be put into organizing by existing social movements. In a number of contexts, a lot have been organized by the far right. Social movements are aware of this. - @KatieSandwan #ClimateAgrarianJustice @TNInstitute @Peasant_Journal

With the climate and agrarian movements I work with, there’s hunger to build intersectional cross-cultural alliances but it’s a long & painful process. This is a good forum to ask, what is to be done but also explore the question of what role can activist-scholars play.

Ricardo says not all alternatives are inherently progressive. What are the emancipatory alternatives?
@KatieSandwell says it’s useful to talk about 2 different scales and kinds of alternatives. 1) prefigurative alternatives. 2) Emergence of more convergence processes.

@KasiaPaprocki: We shouldn't expect that these alternatives will speak the language of Climate Change. We need to challenge dominant conceptions of climate justice that leave alternative visions of anti-capitalist and anti-racist visions.

"I agree with what Katie, Kasia and Mamadou said. Alternatives are already here. We think about the future but we realize that there are so many ways that anticapitalist struggles are happening in different sites." - @diana_ojedao

Q: How do we protect the rights of indigenous peoples at the global level, the rights of indigenous peoples and their access to resources, forests, etc.

A - @ZGoita: There are strong movements of indigenous peoples active at the international level. There are specific cases addressed by these movements. Indigenous peoples are creating conditions to address their rights. It's slow but things are moving.

@KasiaPaprocki: We cannot have agrarian climate justice without addressing inequitable access to resources by communities– without addressing questions of redistribution, we cannot think about anti-capitalist alternatives.

Q: One of the big issues, especially regarding the state, is who is authorised to make change? Which levels of the state or parts of the states can authorize anti-capitalist movement and anti-capitalist agenda? It's naive to think that the state is just one monolithic structure.

A - @ZGoita: I totally agree that the state has a role to play. We don’t need to be naive, we need to create conditions to bring all of these things together and social movements can contribute to the paradigm shift. A long way to go but each of us has a role to play.

A - @KatieSandwell : We need to see the state as a possible tool for change and not as the only player. It needs to be about formulating solutions from grassroots movements, with nuanced and tactical questions and where to advance those changes in relation to the state.

We're moving to the final parallel sessions of the conference, where the debates and discussions will continue under relevant topics. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

SESSION 13 theme - Agroecology, Agroforestry and Anti-Capitalist Ecologies, chaired by: Carol Hernandez (CASAS, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico)
Speakers: Shantanu De Roy, C. Saratchand, Cristián Alarcón, Nosheen Ali and Thais Ponciano Bittencourt.

Shantanu De Roy and C. Saratchand who wored together on 'Towards Inclusive Climate Resilient Agroecological Farming in Punjab', argue that a sustainable agroecological transition will require changes in both productive forces and production relations.

Cristián Alarcón shares on Counter-plantations,
Prefigurative Political Ecologies of Labour and Agroforestry and Agrarian Class Struggles in the
Climate Crisis. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Agroforestry is about planting, especially trees. That is the reason why I want to explore, discuss & elaborate on conceptualisations of counter-plantations. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

In 2021, in a field experience in central Sweden we have experienced another type of agroforestry - counter plantation in opposition to the capitalist and commodity producing plantations and to the plantocracy, the class and owners of plantations. - Cristián Alarcón

Nosheen Ali shares on Reparations towards Nature:
Reflections on Food Sovereignty, Ecological Thought
and Land-based Learning. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Nosheen Ali asks how should we think of colonial/capitalist relations in the land context? The agroecological and decolonial approach and cultural/spiritual frameworks are very important to climate relations, that Marxist approaches sometimes fail to grasp.

She shared an interesting anecdote of a domestic worker in her home who woke up at 4am to pray and also give a pinch of flour to ants that were present around the home.

This made her think that the ants are the guests, cohabiting with the family that need to be respected. All the species are God’s blessings that we need to take care of each other. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Her point is that religion, faith are combined with farming practices. Interspecies connections are good blessings and reciprocity is the base of female farming in Pakistan and could not be let out of her analysis.

Session 14 looks at agrarian struggles, resistance and alternatives, chaired by Soytavanh Mienmany (@SoytavanhM) Speakers: @khandahnish, Han Cheng, Betty Vásquez, María Sojob, Alessandra Manzini, John F McCarthy (@JFMcCarthy3250), Michaela Haug, Gerben Nooteboom (1)

@riniastuti, Pujo Semedi, Darmanto, Mia Siskawati and Pande Made Kutanegara. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Benjamin Fash, joining from Mexico, spoke on Prefiguring Buen Sobrevivir: Lenca Women’s (E)utopianism amid Climate Change. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

Benjamin and his co-authors say their project is about making alternatives visible. Buen Vivir is a utopian, anti-capitalist, decolonial way of life situated as an alternative to development. (1)

(2) Buen Vivir discourse has been equated to ‘live in solidarity, in equality, in harmony, in the land without evil. We argue that by proposing Buen Vivir as a paradigm somehow outside the precarious circumstances does not do justice to how people live and adapt and innovate.

Session 16 discusses strengthening alliances around land struggles, chaired by Fatema Sarker.
Speakers: Itayosara Rojas Herrera, @MarkusKroger, @NayakSuravee, Mijo Luke, @KasiaPaprocki and @mlevien.

@MarkusKroger spoke on Political Economies of Deforestation and looked at the role of different political economic sectors in driving deforestation and clear-cutting. #ClimateAgrarianJustice

He hypothesised that regionally and nationally dominant economic sectors with political power are major explanations for if, how and where contemporary deforestation occurs - looking at Brazil, Peru and Finland.

When studying this issue in Acre, 80% of deforestation is due to ranching. In the iconic extractive resource of Chico Mendez, ranches illegally expanding. This is alarming because this is a protected area. - @MarkusKroger

@KasiaPaprocki and Michael Levien (@mlevien) shared their research - Against the Planetary: For a Critical Ethnography of the Climate Crisis. They say that internationally, many mechanisms of planetary climate justice between nation states are not anti-capitalist (1)

(2) but are depoliticized, dehistoricized and do not take into account the agrarian concerns of communities in Bangladesh.

(3) We need to advance critical theory from critical agrarian studies tradition instead of climate science and policy, and also to include the global south perspective.

We've come to the end of the Climate Change and Agrarian Justice Conference. Thank you for your engagement and participation during the last four days. We've had robust discussions on the issues facing agrarian justice and the climate crisis and looked at the way forward.

Thank you to @Peasant_Journal for initiating this conference and to @TNInstitute and the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists of the Global South (CASAS) for joining in on convening this important gathering.

To all the speakers who submitted their work and presented their findings, thank you for your time and dedication to this important cause.

And a special thanks to everyone who worked behind the scenes to make sure that this conference was a resounding success, from the technical team to the rapporteurs and, of course, the interpreters. Thank you for your tireless efforts.

This is not the end though, we will continue to spread the message of this conference in the coming weeks and months, especially in the lead up to CFS50 and COP27.

Please continue to follow PLAAS, @Peasant_Journal, @TNInstitute, CASAS and other affiliated organisations as we continue with the on-the-ground work.
Thank you all!

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