Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform (review)

Power relations lie at the heart of this impressive and wide-ranging collection of essays. The authors (most of whom are involved with rural social movements) and the editors (who are from the Land Research Action Network) bring their analyses to bear on the agency of peasant organizations and rural workers and on ongoing practices of resistance. As such, the essays presented here, like the social movements they discuss, link the local, the regional, and the global in important ways.

The focus of the essays is on shortcomings of agrarian reform efforts. Demonstrating persuasively that market-led land reform has achieved little to date, the essays argue instead for redistributive land reform together with support for small farmers. This approach to food security, developed by La Via Campesina and labeled the "food sovereignty" paradigm, would establish a set of national agriculture priorities for food production over commercial agriculture and for local consumption networks over food imports. Each essay is both informative and carefully argued.

In its overall structure, the book is organized into three thematic sections. Part 1 considers historical perspectives on agrarian reform, with examples from Guatemala, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and India; each case identifies key agrarian questions and sets out the challenges posed by these countries' experiences. The second section provides an excellent overview of the key debates and themes in agrarian reform. These essays combine specific illustrative examples from Thailand, Mexico, and Colombia with a notable critique of neoliberal approaches to land access, including consideration of gender issues. Part 3 looks to the future, with valuable discussions of alternatives to the dominant neoliberal paradigm.

This book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the politics of agrarian reform. It opens up an important and necessary space for debating the meaning, purpose, and content of agrarian reform in the face of dominant neoliberal agendas promoted by the World Bank and its partners. Each essay, in turn, presents a detailed examination of the theoretical weaknesses and political implications of the contemporary drive to privatize land and promote land markets, while never losing sight of the potential for resistance by the landless, by indigenous groups, and by women.

The discussions contained in this volume will be of interest to researchers from a range of geographical specializations, including Africanists, activists, policymakers, and students interested in the important political, economic, and social issues raised by contemporary land reform.