LE3 .A278 2013

2013

Sacouman, Jim

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

Sociology

Sociology

This thesis develops an analysis of resistance movements of landless peasants in Brazil and India to show that these movements are strong cases of progressive struggles to attain land, rights, and dignity despite ongoing globalizing and polarizing capitalist development that actively harms peasant populations. A Marxist framework is employed, especially based on the theory of accumulation by dispossession. Secondary sources are used to construct a picture of social issues facing peasants in Brazil and India. This method makes both qualitative and quantitative data equally easy to attain. Journal articles, books, and news media are sources drawn upon to gain a broad view of the societies being examined. Capitalism, particularly in its imperialist forms, has made it extremely difficult for peasants in Brazil and India to transition into the globalized capitalist economy. This difficulty has been shown, in the cases of Brazil and India, to be a result of state collusion with capital built on a history of colonization. Yet, peasant movements continue to struggle against the privatization of lands and dispossession of their ways of life. An analysis and comparison of capitalistic processes in Brazil and India allows a better understanding of how national differences are transcended by efforts to impose capitalism on subsistence (as opposed to merely market) producers like peasants, and what sort of social problems arise from such imposition.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1045