Files
Abstract
This thesis examines transnational feminist mobilization within the field of global food governance, focusing on the experiences and political practices of peasant and rural women’s movements in Brazil. Through an analysis of their engagement on the ground and transnationally, I illustrate how these movements articulate a counter-hegemonic political project that challenges the dominant global food system. I argue that this alternative project is woven through multiple articulations among grassroots, social, and transnational movements. I propose a patchwork-weaving framework, grounded in a decolonial perspective, to understand the construction of solidarities and of this political project within transnational feminist mobilization. The act of weaving this political project, bound together through threads of affection and an ethics of care, honors the plurality of struggles that collectively envision systemic transformation. This metaphor foregrounds the knowledge, resistance, and practices of rural women and Indigenous Peoples across Brazil and Latin America. I suggest that the decolonial nature of the epistemologies and methodologies emerging in the region is fundamental to the continuation of the patchwork and to the strengthening of transnational solidarities in political spaces, such as the Civil Society and Indiginous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM). Drawing on Gramscian non-structuralism and on a feminist historical materialism lens, I examine the negotiation process within the gender workstream of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to grasp how these movements, organized through the CSIPM, engaged subversively in contesting the injustices, oppression, and exploitation of the hegemonic system. I argue that the crises and contradictions produced within neoliberal food systems have also created openings for mobilization, and opportunities seized by rural and peasant women to advance their political project centered on food sovereignty as a radical alternative.