Soy expansion and countermovements in the Global South: a Polanyian perspective

The chapter takes the marketization of land and agricultural products as a starting point and focuses on movements and countermovements around the expansion of soy production in three countries of South America. The authors use Polanyi’s concept of the double movement in combination with critical state theory adapted for (semi-)peripheral contexts. They investigate both the drivers of marketization in the agro-food sector as well as state agency and rural social movements as protective countermovements. Case studies include Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia during the administration of left-wing governments. From a historical and comparative perspective, the chapter shows the scope and limits for protective countermovements and analyses how rural social movements became disarticulated (Brazil), demobilized (Argentina) and fractured (Bolivia). The results call for a realistic assessment of countermovements, taking into account both their room for manoeuvre and their limits.