Module Information

Module Identifier
HYM0420
Module Title
Collective resistance of peasant communities in twentieth-century Latin America and the Caribbean
Academic Year
2024/2025
Co-ordinator
Dr Diana Valencia-Duarte
Semester
Semester 2
Other Staff
 

Course Delivery

 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment Written essay 1  3000 Words  50%
Semester Assessment Written essay 2  3000 Words  50%
Supplementary Assessment Written essay 1  3000 Words  50%
Supplementary Assessment Written essay 2  3000 Words  50%

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

Demonstrate a critical decolonial reading and understanding of the historiography, interdisciplinary studies, and primary sources of the history of the agrarian question and peasantries in LAC in the twentieth century

Effectively engage with highly diverse historical sources to decolonially approach on-going debates related to the history of Global South peasantry, challenging the official, mainstream, or colonial narratives

Demonstrate both orally and through written work an ability to incorporate interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks such as Critical Agrarian Studies (CAS) to the analysis of historical material

Discuss with confidence a wide range of problems and prospects associated with contemporary peasantries and the agrarian question such as land grabbing, rural/agrarian/food history, peoples’ history, the Green Revolution, food regimes, and agroecology

Brief description

Peasants are the people – and peoples – of the land and rural life. After the fourteenth century revolts that challenged power in Europe, the word ‘peasantry’ was distorted and is still considered pejorative in Anglo-centred thought. Rural communities in former European colonies who were assigned the title of peasants, including ‘campesinos’ – in Spanish – have taken possession of this name to organise their struggles. Their collective resistance during the colonial and early republican periods were either Indigenist or merchant-based revolts but, to face the particular challenges of a neocolonial twentieth century, peasant cultures developed more elaborated, creative and complex strategies later on.

Aims

This module aims to approach topics involving rural cultures, including interdisciplinary frameworks of analysis, broad perspectives and alternative sources, by using the in-depth examination of historical imprints of actions of resistance displayed by peasant communities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in the twentieth century.

Content

In the twentieth century, the peasantist ideas of Alexander Chayanov in the Russian Revolution vindicated the peasantry as the core of a post-modern utopia, contrasting with Euro-centred notions of peasantry as pre-modern. After the Mexican Revolution (1910) – essentially peasant – led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, the peasants of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) organised themselves socially and politically to defend peasant agriculture and peasant ways of living. Their struggles have been a form of decolonisation in practice, in the face of threats to diverse peasant cultures by colonial legacies and neocolonial advances during the twentieth century; such threats include the long Green Revolution, the military repression promoted by the United States to impose agroindustries, rural violent conflicts, unfinished agrarian reforms, loss of food sovereignty, structural racism, maldevelopment, land grabbing, climate change and the corporate food production regime. During these seminars we will examine primary and secondary sources relevant to anti-peasant mechanisms displayed in LAC during the course of the century, as well as the collective resistance of these cultures to survive, protect their territories and grow in their own terms.
Seminars

1. Introduction

2. Contemporary peasantries

3. Peasant utopias

4. Peasant revolutionaries

5. Landless peasant movements

6. Green Revolution

7. Land grabbing and the agrarian question

8. Peasant women

9. Afro-peasantry agroecology

10. Repeasantisation and Transnational Peasant Movement

Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Adaptability and resilience Students will learn to adapt to studying a wide and interdisciplinary range of sources to study the history of contemporary peasantry, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean
Co-ordinating with others Students will be expected to play an active part in group activities (e.g. short group presentations in seminars) and to learn to evaluate their own contribution to such activities.
Creative Problem Solving Identify problems and factors which might influence potential solutions; develop creative thinking approaches to problem solving; evaluate advantages and disadvantages of potential solutions.
Critical and analytical thinking Critical thinking will be developed through the interrogation of different types of both secondary and primary sources and the adoption of alternative perspectives to approach the history of agrarian cultures.
Professional communication Written communication skills will be developed through the coursework and written examination; skills in oral presentation will be developed in seminars but are not formally assessed.
Real world sense Students will develop a range of transferable skills, including time management and communication skills. Students will be advised on how to improve research and communication skills through individual tutorial providing feedback on submitted coursework.
Subject Specific Skills Students will develop their research skills by reading a range of historical material and evaluating their usefulness in preparation for the coursework.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 7