In this article, Dr Doi Ra, Visiting Fellow and PhD alumna at the International Institute of Social Studies, examines the contradictions of peasant households worldwide as they deal with the new socio-ecological reality shaped by land rushes.
Her paper, published in Agriculture and Human Values, builds on the work of one of the founding members of La Via Campesina looking at the increasing necessity of peasant households worldwide to combine wage work with small-scale farming and the use of migrant labour.
She explores these contradictions by looking at the situation of peasant households and migrant mine workers in Kachin State, Myanmar, as they navigate a socio-ecological landscape transformed by land rushes.
She argues that the mining industry in this area is intertwined with peasant agriculture. It thus, paradoxically, contributes to the survival of peasant households rather than being detrimental to it.
Read the article online
'Peasants and migrant workers in the farms and mines: synergies and contradictions', Agriculture and Human Values, March 2025.
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