Course Overview

Building an emancipatory praxis for food system transformation

Why do some food systems transform, while others do not? Organizing with agroecology and food sovereignty to challenge entrenched power structures and build justice into our food systems requires fluid planning and collective decision-making, effective farming and food distribution techniques, strategic and conjectural alliances, resource mobilization, historical knowledge, narrative and discursive skills, a political and ecological vision for educating society, and a commitment and deep belief in people’s capacity to transform themselves as they transform the world. This course examines case studies of current and historic social movements, from Indigenous Land Back to Black Agrarians to La Vía Campesina, that have dared to use agroecology as a tool for liberation, and explores the socioeconomic, cultural, political, ecological, and pedagogical dynamics of these struggles. Course participants will critically examine agroecology and food sovereignty as mobilizing concepts, and reflect on their own constituencies and the potential for solidarity across differences in building liberation praxis to confront exploitation, injustice, and empire, and leave legacies of healthy land, heirloom seeds, fruits, freedom, and equality for future generations.

COURSE DAYS & TIMES:

Spring 2025 Semester: TBD

Required online meetings every week; time to be determined

In this course, we will set into motion some of the pedagogical approaches and methods employed by rural social movements in their autonomous schools of agroecology and food sovereignty. This requires leaning into the online learning community and trusting one another as our companions in a journey of learning and personal growth, while grounding ourselves in our different geographical contexts and realities. Multiple truths and horizontal learning are enabled through small group projects, curriculum co-design, and creative inquiry. Readings and videos supplement interactive sessions, group discussions, and individual reflection.

MODULE 1 – HISTORICAL MEMORY AND AGROECOLOGY

This course will begin by establishing a social and historical framework for our lives and learning. The recovery of historical memory is at the heart of agroecological decolonization and transformation. We will explore the philosophy of social movements, the dialogue among ways of knowing, and the roots of agroecology in non-capitalist systems of social reproduction.

MODULE 2 – NOTIONS AND DIMENSIONS OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

Module 2 explores how agroecology flows directly into expressions of political, cultural and substantial sovereignties. Readings and discussions will explore the emergence and implications of food sovereignty as a political concept with global significance for gender and colonial relations, biodiversity, nature, labor, value, culture and power.

MODULE 3 – TERRITORIES, SENSES, AND IDENTITIES IN STRUGGLE

The struggle to control food systems is among the largest struggles on the planet today, pitting transnational corporations and finance capital against a billion direct producers of food, as well as social movements and allies. Examining the contours of this struggle, the strategies employed and the surprises, from a world-historical and grounded perspective, with invited guests from movements, will be the aim of Module 3.