The (im)possibility of being a peasant: Narratives and lived experiences of the avocado boom in Cajamarca, Colombia

Abstract

Over the past decade, avocados have become a fashionable fruit with a rising demand in global markets and Colombia has emerged as a major exporter worldwide. This thesis delves into the interrelated sociocultural, economic and ecologic transformations caused by the avocado boom taking the reader all the way to the small town of Cajamarca in the Colombian Andes, where this fruit is cultivated by both smallholder peasants in their farms and landless peasant workers in large plantations. Throughout the research, the protagonists of these stories deliberately self-identify as peasants, as this category captures the long and rich histories of social struggle that shape how they understand themselves. Guided by the research question “How does the engagement of peasants with the avocado boom in Cajamarca transform their identities and subjectivities?”, this work is grounded in post-structural feminist political ecology, critical agrarian studies and discussions on coloniality. It draws from narrative interviews and participant observation to explore three different, yet interrelated dimensions of peasants’ lives: their livelihood trajectories, the divisions of labor throughout the avocado crop cycle and their embodied experiences, and the environmental impacts of the boom.

The thesis shows that although peasants are continuously hailed into occupying subject positions that facilitate the expansion of the boom, they strive to maintain their peasant identity and struggle to live a life they consider fulfilling –sometimes openly resisting, sometimes negotiating, and other times reproducing the terms of their subjectivation. The findings also reveal that the boom generates contradictory yet inter-dependent processes of integration (the articulation of a unified, idealized, and nostalgic collective identity) and differentiation (the reproduction of gender and class differences) of the peasantry. Ultimately, the thesis shows that this differentiation does not result in an erasure of peasants’ collective identity. Rather, it places peasants in different positions and endows them with different resources in their struggle for achieving the same idealized agrarian aspirations.