IEE Newsletter No. 33

Research Clusters: Interview with Guest Researcher

Pedro Magalhães interviews guest researcher Dr. Boaventura Monjane

Boaventure MonjaneBoaventura Monjane holds a PhD in Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship (Sociology), from the CES/Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra. He is based at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as a postdoctoral researcher. He is also a fellow of the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counterstrategies (IRGAC) of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS). Dr. Monjane has recently arrived in Bochum to participate in a research exchange at the IEE, where he will be conducting joint research with Dr. Anne Siebert in the field of food sovereignty and agrarian transformations. During this conversation, conducted by MADM student Pedro Magalhães, Dr. Monjane described the origins of his interests for rural politics, his work as a scholar-activist, and his hopes for the work he will develop with the IEE.

PM: You recently concluded your PhD in Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship from the University of Coimbra, where you conducted a very impressive study on rural struggles and processes of emancipation in Southern Africa. Where does your interest in the role of social movements in processes of rural transformation come from?

BM: I am a son of a peasant woman and a trade unionist. My father worked for the main trade union in Mozambique, Organização dos Trabalhadores de Moçambique (OTM - Mozambique Workers' Organization) and my mother was, and still is, a peasant. I got interested in the issue of the peasantry, but also in labor politics, from listening to my parents’ conversations at the dinner table, and I got to understand the dynamics of those two worlds, urban and rural, workers and peasants, and the contradictions involved. I was born during a severe civil war in Mozambique, when peasants played a great role in the country, especially in providing households with food, as the country was depleted and had no storage of food. At the same time, peasants, especially women, were the most targeted victims of the war, by the guerrilla movement Renamo. Later in my life, I got involved in social youth organizations and other grassroots organizations in the neighborhood, as well as in student politics. Later I got to know the National Peasants’ Union of Mozambique (UNAC), through which I also started to collaborate with La Via Campesina (LVC), the transnational agrarian movement. I worked actively with LVC and UNAC for almost 10 years before I started my PhD. I think that my childhood life, my experience in activism, and my direct involvement with agrarian movements contributed to me wanting to do the research I did for my PhD, as a way to understand the issue of rural politics, rural agency, and the political potential of the countryside more deeply; and also to show the ways in which people resist agrarian capital, and the way in which people propose alternatives for a rural and societal transformation.

PM: In which ways has participating in these movements helped shape your worldview and your work as a researcher?

BM: Firstly, because it allowed me to raise questions that if I were not part of them would have never crossed my mind. So, there was, in methodological language, something called epistemic proximity. Secondly, one of my research objectives was to demonstrate that agrarian struggles exist; and in some cases, are the most important and vibrant struggles in certain places. With that, I wanted to challenge the prevailing idea that there are no real agrarian movements in Africa or that popular movements and their leaders have lost radicalism. My participation for about ten years in agrarian movements allowed me to witness the existence of struggles and I wanted to show that through academic research. How would my research be like if I were not part of these movements prior to my term as a PhD student? Of course, I would have different questions, I would have looked at the issue differently. I think that the way I looked at it, at least for me, is much more interesting, as it is much more nuanced. My experience with these movements shaped the way I conducted research in terms of the methodologies I used, and here the Epistemologies of the South come in, a proposal of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and other scholars in Coimbra and beyond. Moreover, my experience with the movements allowed me to apply what is called grounded theory, because I started from the experience I had, from what was there, and I applied the Epistemologies of the South to look at the procedures, such as sociology of absences, sociology of emergencies, and intercultural translation, to understand the importance of those struggles by the very fact that they exist. I think other methodologies are concerned with struggles that are concluded to then theorize and conceptualize around the ‘winners’. The Epistemologies of the South posit that the most important part of the struggles are the struggles themselves because there is active agency in them. What we learn from the struggles themselves, from the knowledge-s born in the struggles, is much more important than who wins or loses. As Boaventura de Sousa Santos says, the fact that people struggle is an indication that there is the possibility of victory, that the struggle could eventually be won. Otherwise, people would not fight at all if they knew that they would lose.

PM: You have recently arrived at Bochum for a research stay with the IEE. How has this exchange experience with the institute been like for you so far, and what are your upcoming plans for your stay?

BM: It is a work in progress. I have just arrived and had a meeting with Dr. Anne Siebert, with whom I will be working with more directly, who is a long-term colleague of mine – we worked together when we were both PhD visiting students at the ISS in The Hague. We participated in learning processes with other scholar-activists from everywhere in the world, who were part of ‘the Village’, a group of scholar-activists who work closely to Professor Jun Borras at the ISS. My plan to strengthen that relationship with Dr. Siebert, and to try to learn from her and with her, is to co-author a journal paper around the issue of food sovereignty. My stay at the institute will probably be good for me to also learn from what has been done at the IEE in terms of understanding politics and political reactions from below, especially through the work that Anne has done in proposals to overcome agrarian populism and agrarian neoliberalism, such as agroecology and food sovereignty. We are going to work on deepening our reflections, as we are probably going to compare South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, to see what new nuances can be said about the potential of food sovereignty and agroecology as a counter strategy in response to agrarian authoritarianism in in southern Africa – and beyond.

PM: You are one of the postdoctoral fellows that compose the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counterstrategies (IRGAC) of the RLS, a global network of scholar activists dedicated to analyzing regional and global interconnections of authoritarian capitalism and reactionary populism. In what ways does being a part of the IRGAC contribute to the further development of your research?

BM: The fellowship is allowing me to deepen my understanding on authoritarianism and populism, but also emancipatory politics. I am part of a cohort of 17 people from countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and more. This epistemic and theoretical richness has allowed me to deepen my understanding and sophisticate my analysis on authoritarianism. I think it has been contributing a great deal in my understanding of the dynamics of agrarian authoritarianism in southern Africa, how it unfolds, how it expresses itself, and how it is resisted by popular movements in the region.


MagalhaesThe interview was conducted by
Pedro Magalhães

MADM Student

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