Abstract
Bolstering the political formation of agrarian organizations has become a priority for La Vía Campesina and the Food Sovereignty Movement. This paper addresses the Spanish case study of the Escuela de Acción Campesina (EAC)—(Peasant Action School), which is a tool for political formation in the Global North in which the philosophical and pedagogical principles of the “peasant pedagogies” of the Training Schools proposed by La Vía Campesina are put into practice within an agrarian organization in Spain and in alliance with the rest of the Spanish Food Sovereignty Movement. The study was carried out over the course of the 10 years of activist research, spanning the entire process for the construction and development of the EAC. Employing an ethnographic methodology, information was collected through participant observation, ethnographic interviews, a participatory workshop, and reviews of internal documents. The paper presents the context in which the EAC arose, its pedagogical dynamics, the structure and the ideological contents implemented for the training of new cadres, and how there are three key areas in the training process: (1) the strengthening of collective union and peasant identity, (2) training in the “peasant” ideological proposal, and (3) the integration of students as new cadres into the organizations’ structures. It is concluded that the EAC is a useful tool in the ideological re-peasantization process of these organizations.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
This study examines the Escuela de Acción Campesina (EAC) as an exceptional and pioneering case study [58] in the current Spanish peasant movement, allowing for analytical and interpretive dialogue with the rest of the political formation processes at the international level within La Vía Campesina (LVC)
This challenge was initially tackled through the coordination of the state COAG, and from there, it was transferred to the local unions, an effort being made to involve them so that they could participate by sending students from their territories, and for the local unions themselves to make a commitment to this process of political formation and generational change
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The advances made in the educational strategy of La Vía Campesina (LVC) have been addressed in depth from a theoretical perspective, and, especially, through the analysis of its experiences in Latin America. Political formation processes within peasant organizations in the countries of the Global North are less common, and there is scant analysis of them [1,2,3,4]. This article analyzes the pedagogical practices of a political education initiative run for 10 years at an agricultural organization in Spain: the Escuela de Acción
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