Strengthening Agroecology with the Political Pedagogy of Peasant Organisations: A Case Study of Baserritik Mundura in the Basque Country

Abstract

La Vía Campesina organisations have identified the area of education and training as a strategic and priority arena of intervention to bring about change in the political-pedagogical perspective. This involves rethinking and redesigning the conventional training processes towards the collective experiences of learning, organisation, exchange and living. With this approach in mind, and based on the experiences and educational contributions made by peasant organisations, this paper presents the systematisation of the Baserritik Mundura experience, analysing and sharing the learning derived from this case study and establishing the integral role of the pedagogic proposal as an axis for systematisation. This analysis, from the logic of the systematisation of processes, promulgates the learnings of this agroecological training experience while exposing both its strengths and weaknesses. We present the learning linked to the pedagogic dimensions that, through a cross-over method, aim to create a multidimensional educational environment which transforms our subjectivities, practices and the beliefs that sustain them. This learning is presented in eight main areas related to: (1) organicity, (2) alternation, (3) the mystical and ludic-cultural dimension, (4) the contents, subjects and teaching team, (5) the proposal as a whole and its perspective of popular education and action research, (6) the transversality of the feminist perspective, (7) linguistic plurality and (8) the pedagogic political support of the process. In addition, we present considerations related to the learning identified in the systematisation itself. On the one hand, we look at the lack of training processes in the official university context related to an alternation system with an organicity linked to the territory, and the need for the practical development of a dynamic of the collective construction of knowledge with a view toward transforming the logics that underpin the existing hegemonic ideologies. On the other hand, we point out the need for a debate regarding the epistemological perspective and integral, experiential and emancipatory pedagogical perspectives. Even with their limitations and challenges, these proposals have great potential to train, organise, politicise, excite and connect people from different fields towards the construction of a fairer, healthier and more sustainable agroecological agri-food system, based on food sovereignty and the everyday lives of people