Work

Resisting, leveraging, and reworking climate change adaptation projects from below: placing adaptation in Ecuador’s agrarian struggle

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: As climate change escalates, donors, international organizations, and state actors are implementing adaptation projects. Embedded within these adaptation projects are imaginaries of rural resilience. These imaginaries, however, are contested by individuals and collectives targeted by such initiatives. In this article, we draw on Foucault’s notion of counter conducts to understand how beneficiaries in Ecuador resist, leverage, and/or rework adaptation interventions and towards what end. We identified five counter conducts: (1) negotiating for control, (2) setting the terms for participation, (3) opting out, (4) subverting the discursive frame, and (5) leveraging longevity. We argue that these counter conducts are generative, enacting multi-scalar counter-hegemonic politics of agrarian transformation.

Source: The Journal of Peasant Studies

DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2144252

Authors: Megan Mills-Novoa, Rutgerd Boelens, Jaime Hoogesteger, Jeroen Vos