Illusions, hunger and vices smallholders, environmentalism and the green agrarian question in Chiapas' biofuel rush
Activists and environmentalists all over the world have been successful in framing biofuel crops as drivers of deforestation, land grabbing and rural indebtedness - effectively reversing earlier promotional pronouncements of biofuels as the answer to ecological problems. The counternarrative has now become the dominant narrative. But one important question has remained unanswered: if biofuels are responsible for a large range of social and environmental impacts, why do so many smallholders and poor farmers participate in the production of these crops? Foregrounding this research on key principles from agrarian studies and political ecology literature, this thesis addresses this question for the case of the recent biofuel expansion in Chiapas (Mexico). In this region, oil palm and jatropha, both promoted as biofuels, have been embraced and rapidly planted amongst smallholders, thus stirring an environmental conflict that put environmentalists and an important faction of rural communities at odds with each other. Using data gathered in the oil palm plantations of Chiapas, we find that the stream of critical studies that followed the 2000s biofuel expansion has not adequately theorised smallholder participation in the production of biofuel crops and in the biofuel expansion. Research has frequently either focused on the relations between agrarian capital and rural producers or on the environmental impacts of biofuel cultivation, ignoring the interface between the two domains. Seeking to address this research gap and believing that theoretical and not just empirical contributions can be made from interrogating this nexus, we look at these two domains together through the green agrarian question framework. This thesis attempts to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the local drivers underpinning smallholder participation in the production of biofuel crops in Chiapas.
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| Format: | Texto biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
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Wageningen, Netherlands Wageningen University
2015
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| Subjects: | Industrias de la energía de la biomasa, Elaeis guineensis, Campesinos, Tenencia de la tierra, Política agrícola, Aspectos sociales, Degradación ambiental, Frosur, |
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