Transnational Social Movements: Environmentalist, Indigenous, and Agrarian Visions for Planetary Futures

Abstract

Environmentalist, Indigenous, and agrarian and food justice movements that mobilize across and beyond national borders are demanding recognition and participation in debates and policies that shape planetary futures. We review recent social movements that challenge agendas set by corporations, elites, states, conservative movements, and some international governance institutions. We pay particular attention to novel concepts that emerged from or were popularized by these movements, such as environmental justice, climate debt, Indigenous-led conservation, food sovereignty, agroecology, extractivism, and Vivir Bien (“Living Well”). Such concepts and agendas increasingly enter international governance spaces, influence global policy debates, build innovative institutions, and converge across class, geographic, and sectoral lines. Although they face daunting obstacles—particularly the free-market zealotry that dominates international policymaking and the agribusiness, mining, energy, and other corporate-philanthropic lobbies—the visions proffered by these movements offer new possibilities for creating a world that prioritizes the intrinsic value of nature and all its beings.