Agrarian Extractivism in Latin America

Ben M. McKay is Assistant Professor of Development and Sustainability in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Calgary in Canada. His research focuses on the political economy and ecology of agrarian change in Latin America, agrarian extractivism, and food sovereignty alternatives. He is the author of The Political Economy of Agrarian Extractivism: Lessons from Bolivia (2020) and co-editor of The Edward Elgar Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (2021) and Rural Transformations and Agro-Food Systems (2018). Alberto Alonso-Fradejas is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Human Geography and Planning Department, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. Alberto is also an Associate Researcher at the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam, a Fellow of the Guatemalan Institute of Agrarian and Rural Studies (IDEAR), and Reviews Section Co-Editor for the Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS). Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete holds a double PhD in International Development Studies from Saint Mary’s University and the Autonomous University of Zacatecas. His research focuses on the dynamics of agrarian transformations and new peasant movements in Paraguay. His work has been published in scholarly journals such as Journal of Agrarian Change, Latin American Perspectives, and Estudios Críticos del Desarrollo.

Introduction; 1 The Biotechnological Agrarian Model in Argentina: fighting against capital within science; 2 Extractive dynamics of agrarian change in Bolivia; 3 Agrarian extractivism in the Brazilian Cerrado; 4 Social reproduction, dispossession, and the gendered workings of agrarian extractivism in Colombia; 5 Agrarian extractivism and sustainable development: the politics of pineapple expansion in Costa Rica; 6 Gender inclusion in the sugarcane production of agrofuels in coastal Ecuador: illusionary promises of rural development within a new agrarian extractivism; 7 Life purging agrarian extractivism in Guatemala: towards a renewable but unlivable future?; 8 Extractive agave and tequila production in Jalisco, Mexico; 9 Forestry extractivism in Uruguay