If we would elaborate on what Erasmus Professor Jun Borras has done in the past on making people aware of the injustice of land grabbing and knowledge politics, it would take up half the article. Fact is he is a scholar-activist on the topic of land politics in the Global South and has co-established institutional spaces for dialogues among academics and peasants of the Global South to join in the worldwide discussion on just land politics. Supporting the often unheard voices without speaking on their behalf is the central goal.
Together with Ian Scoones, Professor of Resource Politics and Environmental Change at IDS Sussex, Anna Tsing (Professor of Anthropology, Aarhus University and University of California Santa Cruz) and Esteve Corbera (Professor of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology at ICTA-UAB Barcelona), he has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council Synergy grant of €8.33 million for their joint project "Land and Life in the Anthropocene: Landscape reform (LAND)". The interdisciplinary team will investigate how land, livelihoods and ecosystems can be reshaped to support people and the planet. The study will focus on four locations: the Amazon in Colombia, South African savannahs, Mediterranean plains and Southeast Asian coastal areas and wetlands. The ERC considers the proposal to be highly ambitious and innovative and expects the researchers to make a significant impact.
The mainstream thinking about development is based on the idea of limitless economic growth, Jun Borras states. 'But this is possible only at the expense of massive inequality, exploitation and destruction of the environment. We produce so much food that no one should be hungry. Food is not produced for hunger but for profit. 700 million people in the world are chronically hungry because they cannot afford to buy food. Food and land politics are interlinked.' That's why Borras focuses on land politics: 'The global food system is based on unequal access to land, allowing big companies, mainly from the North, to extract resources from the South and exhaust the soil, while failing to create fair jobs. A more democratic distribution of access to land is a fundamental requirement to building a future that is more just, fairer and kinder.'
For a more just society, you need equitable access to knowledge. Academic knowledge is not easily accessible for academics in the global South because subscriptions to articles and academic books are expensive. And when they publish, their articles get stuck behind a paywall. Global knowledge politics is, according to Jun Borras, also deeply undemocratic, privileging knowledge produced in universities over wisdom of generations of farmers. Borras believes that everyone is a knowledge holder, both academics and farmers. Their knowledges are different, but of equal value.
'The challenge is how to produce impactful ideas while democratising institutions of knowledge-making at the same time'
Jun Borras
Your focus on helping the work of social movements on, for example, land grabbing has contributed to a broad-based advocacy. That has led to UN guidelines and the UN declaration on the right of peasants (UNDROP). Did this improve their actual situation?
'My work is a super tiny part of the much bigger social movements within and outside academia. This collective work helped put the issue of land politics back on the international agenda. Real gains are not always easy to measure, but reformist rules such as UNDROP are crucial for people to claim their rights. Before, they did not even have the right to complain. The struggle in some societies is very fundamental: for the right to have rights.'
With a group of academic institutions, you organise so-called Writeshops for early career academics from the global South. How do they make an impact?
'The international Writeshop is a platform for learning and discussing global knowledge politics. We can produce knowledge with a positive societal impact within a deeply undemocratic institutional setting. The challenge is how to produce impactful ideas while democratising institutions of knowledge-making at the same time. The most marginalised group in academia is early career scholars from the global South. Especially women and people from minority groups. With sessions in writing and studying knowledge politics, the Writeshop encourages and supports people to write articles in top journals. In this way, they are able to join and become key actors in global knowledge making and build a network with other scientists around the world. In six years, more than 300 participants from 100 countries have participated and published numerous articles. Participants get emotional when they discover they have joined a worldwide community that strives for the same ideals.'
Thanks to the Writeshop Jenniffer Vargas Reina works on peace and land reform in her country Colombia
In 2019, Professor Jenniffer Vargas Reina from the National University of Colombia was one of the first to participate in the Writeshop that was co-organised by Jun Borras for early career scholars from the Global South in China. Thus, she gained access to an international scientific community. Jenniffer studied social and political science in Mexico. At that time, she already had extensive experience supporting peasants and indigenous peoples in their struggle against land grabbing. But the armed conflicts in Colombia were hindering reform. 'Peace is the prerequisite for all other reforms', says Vargas Reina from Colombia. In her country, this is particularly urgent: an agreement was recently signed with the FARC, but the last remaining rebel group, the ELN, refuses to lay down its arms. Jenniffer accompanied the civil society group that was involved in the negotiations with the ELN.
To make a greater impact on equitable land distribution, she wanted to publish internationally on the topic. The Writeshop helped her publish an article in the leading Journal of Peasant Studies. 'That was a pivotal moment in my career. I also gained a vast and valuable network of land activists and scholars in the Global South.' The feedback from the international academic community and the workshop participants was crucial. 'I was given an international platform and learned that people all over the world are working on land reform.' Knowledge politics is deeply undemocratic, Jun Borras states. Universities of the Global South do not have enough money for scientific publications. The Writeshop gives people access.
She completed a postdoctoral program at Yale University but decided to return to Colombia. 'I'm a tropical animal, and I wanted to help my country progress', she says. And that's what happened: the progressive government recently asked her to write a master plan for land reform. 'I can hardly believe it', says the young professor. Along with fifteen other experts, she is making proposals to the government to give farmers fairer access to land, water, credit, and other resources. 'That's fairer, and it's also economically more effective', she explains. 'Farmers who own their land produce more and therefore earn more. Moreover, this way, Colombia can become a provider of good food, clean water, decent jobs and other important environmental benefits.'
What are the chances of this master plan being implemented? 'We have a small window of opportunity', says Jenniffer. 'But rural residents are putting enormous pressure on the government to push through. We're saying: this is inevitable. And for me, hope is a powerful tool. It's difficult to change history, but it can be done.'
Is it possible to make a societal impact and stay academically neutral?
'At least in social sciences, research cannot be neutral. Your framing of a research problem reflects your bias. But this is not a problem. I can still be a rigorous researcher. We just come to different conclusions, because we have different reference points. My reference point is the exploited and the oppressed.'
Your second focus in democratising knowledge politics (DKPI) is the training of leaders of grassroot peasant movements. What do you work on with them?
'Local communities are knowledge holders and knowledge producers. We learn from them. In the training, participants learn about tools of analysis they can use in different circumstances. The training we do enables working people, farmers and their social movements to understand different and competing explanations of problems and how to solve them, such as climate change. Participants have very different backgrounds: from high school to university education levels. Most of them are poor farmers and fishers. But the concepts we discuss are on a higher level. We don't use written sources. We translate abstract concepts to their environment. After we have shared the concepts, we talk in groups and do a wrap up together. They train themselves to be on an equal level with policy experts from governments, or other social movements in the way they understand concepts that matter to everyday life. More than 700 people participated, and they give very positive feedback. They in turn train others. Equally important, the trainers learn a lot, too. Maybe even more. What I learn feeds into my research and teaching. It is humbling for academics to see how enormous the knowledge of ordinary working people is. Experiential and academic knowledge are equally valuable. Combining them creates new and powerful insights.'
In Brussels, you recently co-organised a conference of academics, farmers, and the European Commission, sponsored by the DKPI program. How did the conference influence policy?
'To change things, we need a mobilisation of local communities and their social movements and practical development policy makers. Academic discussions support the discussion, especially in providing academic studies that strengthen the position of marginalised groups, like small farmers. An important principle from rural social movements is "nothing about us without us". Thus, on every panel, we had at least one grassroot movement representative engaged. That changed the conversation for the better and made everybody’s contribution more influential.'
As a scholar-activist you strive for a future that is kinder, fairer and more just. What will be the impact of all the initiatives when you retire?
Jun Borras smiles. 'That will be in seven years! The most rewarding outcome is to know that so many young scholar-activists are enthusiastic about this way of working. It changes the world, but also academia. This is how it should be.'
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