The environmentalization of the agrarian question and the agrarianization of the climate justice movement

Contemporary agrarian, rural and rural–urban movements and alliances

“…The 2023 Journal of Agrarian Change collection (Pattenden, 2023) affirms the sense that we had in 2016–2018, when ERPI was established: that there was an urgent need to discuss emancipatory rural politics in the context of the regressive populist surge. The urgency and necessity of this thematic research and political focus have become even more compelling as populist politics have become entangled with climate change politics—both mainstream solutions and competing alternatives—pointing to the importance of the agrarian and rural sectors in resolving global crises beyond the classical issues of agriculture and food (Borras et al, 2022; Martinez‐Alier et al, 2016; Yaşın, 2022). That some of the manifestations of regressive populism are now being reversed, or at least halted, in some parts of the world, shows that new alliances can be formed around more progressive, emancipatory agendas.…”

Life on the land: new lives for agrarian questions

“…These various agrarian ecological crises do not unfold separately; forged in crucibles of ecology and political economy, they are intertwined as they collide to generate a permanent 'climate of uncertainty' (Matthan 2023; see also Scoones 1995;Scoones and Stirling 2020). They threaten to undermine the basis of current (cheap) agricultural production systems (Moore 2015;Patel and Moore 2018), increase costs, and threaten peasant livelihoods, as part of 'the environmentalization of the agrarian question' (Yaşın 2022). Yaşın (2022Yaşın ( , 1358 sees 'an agrarian question of nature with deepened and expanded consequences for the carbon/energy cycle and climate change' as core to contemporary agrarian transformations and rural challenges.…”

“…They threaten to undermine the basis of current (cheap) agricultural production systems (Moore 2015;Patel and Moore 2018), increase costs, and threaten peasant livelihoods, as part of 'the environmentalization of the agrarian question' (Yaşın 2022). Yaşın (2022Yaşın ( , 1358 sees 'an agrarian question of nature with deepened and expanded consequences for the carbon/energy cycle and climate change' as core to contemporary agrarian transformations and rural challenges. Yet how to approach such environmental agrarian questions is far from straightforward.…”

“…Thus, the nation-state and its legal responsibilities remain, but these transnational actions expand the classic notion of the agrarian question as a national problem. The inclusion of agendas and demands such as climate justice, solutions to the 'ecological debt'a result of labor exploitation and nature expropriationsustainable production, and food sovereignty, open perspectives and challenges for the environmental agrarian question(s) (Yaşın 2022).…”

Scholar-Activism and Land Struggles

“…It has spilled over into the simultaneous processes of land struggles for agrarian justice and for environmental and climate justice. 'Agrarian climate justice' is the shorthand we use for this hybrid type, which may well be what defines twenty-first-century land struggles (Borras and Franco, 2018;Calmon et al, 2021;Sekine, 2021;Shah, 2022;Yaşın, 2022). 11 Activists have struggled to find ideological and political routes to navigate changes that pose existential threats to the lives and livelihoods of working people, rural and urban, worldwide.…”