Soy Expansion and Countermovements in the Global South – A Polanyian Perspective

This chapter takes the marketization of land and agricultural products as a starting point and focuses on movements and countermovements around the expansion of soy production in three South-American countries. The authors combine Polanyi’s concept of the double movement with critical state theory adapted for (semi-)peripheral contexts. They investigate drivers of marketization in the agro-food sector as well as state agency and rural social movements as protective countermovements. Case studies comprise Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia during the administration of left-wing governments. From a historical and comparative perspective, we show the scope and limits for protective countermovements and analyse how rural social movements became disarticulated (Brazil), demobilised (Argentina), and fractured (Bolivia). The results call for a realistic assessment of countermovements, taking into account both the room of manoeuvring and their limits.