Resisting agrarian neoliberalism and authoritarianism: Struggles towards a progressive rural future in Mozambique

Abstract

After nearly two and a half decades with a Land Law widely considered progressive, Mozambique is preparing to revise its legal framework for land. Land activists accuse the government of pursuing an authoritarian approach, excluding civil society participation, and falsifying public consultations. The revision would mark a major shift in Mozambique's land policy towards an even more neoliberal framework to allow the transfer of individual land titles. This turning point is a crucial moment for popular movements to mobilize against the consolidation of agrarian neoliberalism and fight for pro‐poor land policy that benefits small‐scale food producers and rural communities at large. While recognizing different rural and agrarian class formations and interests in Mozambique, I argue that embryonic forms of a cross‐class alliance are becoming apparent. As deagrarianization proceeds, the National Union of Peasants (UNAC) plays a key role in mobilizing the rural poor — petty commodity producers, farm workers, fishermen, small agrarian capitalists, and agrarian civil society at large — using left‐wing populism to oppose agrarian neoliberalism, which takes authoritarian forms.

Progressive politics and populism: Classes of labour and rural–urban political sociology—An introduction to the special issue

“…Others still—those on Pakistan, Mozambique, and Colombia —focus primarily on agrarian movements, both as long‐running processes of collective action and specific mobilizations. In doing so, they raise significant issues about the nature of agrarian alliances and agrarian populism (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Engels, this issue; Monjane, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue; Sankey, this issue). Some of the special issue articles also assess the contexts that shape possibilities for, and responses to, mobilization—addressing historical and contemporary state violence, or showing how forms of government are linked to dynamics of accumulation, both nationally and internationally (Bush, this issue; Jakobsen & Nielsen, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; White et al, this issue).…”

“…As shown below, a number of this special issue's authors argue specifically for Borras's left populist peasant‐led agrarian movements. For agrarian movements to be progressive, they, like Borras, think they should be based among PCP farmers, farmer‐workers, tenant farmers, and the landless, as part of a broader set of movements against capitalism (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Bush, this issue; Monjane, this issue). They also show the contradictions within contemporary cross‐class alliances (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Sankey, this issue).…”

Climate Justice and Participatory Research

“…First, these communities were selected to some extent because of the relationship previously built between the authors, the organizations, and the individuals who participated in the study. Trust shared among authors, the organizations, and the leaders and members of the two communities contributed to this epistemic relationship (Monjane, 2021). This allowed the authors to ask certain questions and get more honest answers from the individuals interviewed.…”

Contemporary agrarian, rural and rural–urban movements and alliances

“…The spaces of intersections between the three round figures are empty, but this is not the case in real life. There are many subsectors that are in this space, for example, meat-packing workers, migrant workers who work in rural 7 See Monjane (2023) for a different position in relation to Mozambique.…”