Presentation short abstract

This study examines how emerging peasant communities are dismantling the racial, environmental, land and labour injustices imposed by the sugarcane agroindustry in Alagoas, Northeast Brazil.

Presentation long abstract

This study explores repeasantisation as an alternative to unemployment and precarious work entrenched by the sugarcane agroindustry in Alagoas, Northeast Brazil. It examines how peasant communities are dismantling the racial, environmental, land and labour injustices imposed by agro-industrial exploitation that concentrates land, generates food insecurity and deepens inequalities. The study addresses a couple of questions, including (1) How does the transition from wage labour to peasantry take place? (2) What impact does this transition have on the understanding of racial capitalism? (3) What challenges do communities face in their quest for productive autonomy? (4) How does repeasantisation lead to a political economy/ecology that opposes the exploitation of labour and nature? The methodology includes the analysis of land occupations in the former Usina Laginha in União dos Palmares, where 4,000 families are involved in the struggle for land reform. The analysis combines ethnography, oral history interviews, documentary analysis and visual sociology. The aim is to produce knowledge relevant to peasant struggles for agrarian reform and to promote alternatives based on agroecology, food sovereignty, human well-being and the protection of biodiversity. The research aims to understand how autonomy, self-management and the defence of rights to land, culture, technology, decent work and the environment emerge. This will contribute to a deeper understanding of this particular process of repeasantisation with major social and political impact in Alagoas.