This document summarizes several countermovements that have resisted globalization, including environmentalism, feminism, and food sovereignty movements. It discusses the origins and perspectives of northern and southern environmentalism, and how they differ in their approaches. It also examines the development of feminist thought and how it has shaped concepts of women in development and gender in development. The food sovereignty movement is outlined as seeking to protect local farming and resist the global prioritization of food security over food self-reliance.

1. Global Countermovements
Chapter 7
PhD Fatma Altınbas Sarıgül

2. Countermovements
□ countermovements that resist the globalization
project:
□ “Global justice movements”
□ Environmentalism
□ Feminism
□ Cosmopolitan activism
□ Food sovereignty
□ Conservative responses
□ Religious fundamentalism
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

3. Northern Environmentalism
□ Inspired by Rachel Carson’s (1962) Silent
Spring
□ Human dependency on ecological systems
□ Emphasized West’s rationalized perception of
nature as “external” to society
□ Need to challenge unbridled economic
growth
□ Need to regulate markets
□ Call to:
□ Reverse chemical- and capital-intensive
agriculture
□ Preserve human health and enhance leisure
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

4. Southern Movements:
Environmentalism of the Poor
□ Protect existing cultural practices; question
market forces
□ In contrast to Northern environmentalism that
seek to regulate environmental implications of
market
□ Many examples:
□ 20th
century: Tropical forest dwellers protected
rainforests as 1980s export boom intensified
logging and beef pasturing
□ Challenge environmental stresses from mining,
damming, resource overuse, green revolution
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

5. Common Denominators of
Environmental Movements
□ Nature is finite
□ Epidemics threaten dynamic living ecosystems and
human health
□ Monocultures do not have regenerative properties
of natural systems
□ Economic notions of value are insufficient
□ Measuring income does not account for loss of
wealth; renders environmental impact invisible
□ Call for ecological accounting
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

6. Pressures Toward New
Environmental Thinking
□ Emerge of New Social Movements that:
□ Create new forms of social and political action
□ Critique economism, centralism and hierarchies
of the development project
□ Rights for abstract citizens are secondary
□ Focus on practices that question dominant
values and power relations
□ Examples: greens, feminism, shackdwellers, food
sovereignty, worker-owned cooperatives,
participatory budgeting, food policy councils,
neighborhood associations, landless workers
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

7. Pressures toward New
Environmental Thinking
□ Growing awareness of limits of “spaceship earth”
□ Growing conflict on margins between local
cultures and global market
□ Pressure of rural poor on natural resources has
intensified; environmental movements pursue
self-organized “sustainable development”
□ Resistance to the Narmada Dam forced the
World Bank to withdraw support as marginal
populations asserted control over their lives
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

8. Sustainable Development
□ 1987 Brundtland Report Our Common Future:
□ “meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs”
□ Did not resolve debate over cause of environmental
degradation: poverty vs. affluence
□ Poor people as cause of environmental stress on
resources
□ Suggested solutions: Population control,
economic growth
□ Environmental stress due to global inequality,
affluent lifestyles
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

9. The Earth Summit
□ 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) Rio de Janieiro
□ Agenda 21 document detailed global program
□ Global South agreed to participate in global
program to reduce CO2 emissions, preserve
biodiversity, and rainforests in exchange for financial
aid, investment
□ UNCED called for environmental protection without
distorting international trade and investment
□ Privileged global management of environment over
local/national concerns
□ Favored global economy vs. economic conditions in
Global South
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

10. Global Environmental
Management
□ Aims to preserve planetary resources
□ Southern grassroots movements say global
environmental managers are concerned ensuring
continued profit
□ New global ecology is not about social justice or
distribution but about:
□ Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (automobiles
and burning forests)
□ Protecting biodiversity (in tropical forests)
□ Reducing pollution in international waters
□ Curbing ozone-layer depletion
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

11. Global Environmental
Management
□ World Bank established Global Environmental Facility
(GEF) fund
□ Problem is surplus populations, scarce resources
□ Ignores larger framework of inequality in resource
resources
□ Examples:
□ Brazil – 1% of population owns 44% of fertile
agricultural land; 32 million destitute
□ SAPs, grain imports, soy exports displace peasants.
□ Landless people who do not join Sem Terra/migrate
incorporated into “poverty management
programs”
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

12. Global Environmental
Management
□ Priorities of global vs. local managers differ
□ World Bank: indigenous people have “limited
capacity” to participate in development due to
“cultural barriers or low social and political status”
□ Perpetuates idea that cultural minorities need
guidance
□ Subordinates minorities to national
development initiatives
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

13. Feminism
□ 1880s: First movement for women’s rights in France
□ 1970s: “Second-wave feminism”
□ Transformed meanings of development
□ Institutionalized policies to improve gender equality
□ Three threads of an alternative development agenda:
□ Valuing equality in productive work
□ Valuing social reproduction,
□ Reorienting social values from economism to humanism
□ Three phases of feminist influence on development:
□ Economic justice in the workplace
□ Policy supporting unpaid labor
□ Identifying the threat to sustainability in patriarchy and the
market system
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

14. Feminist Influence on
Development
□ Women in Development (WID)
□ 1975 Mexico City UN World Conference on Women
□ Extended development programs to include women
□ Framed UN Decade for Women 1976-85
□ Gender and Development (GAD)
□ From integrationism to women as decision-makers
□ Refocused on different development priorities and
needs of women and men
□ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted
by UN in 1979
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

15. Women in Development (WID)
Perspective
□ Women have unequal access to participate in
production and in defining economic structures
and policies
□ Women have always been producers, but
development has focused on male cash-earning
activity
□ Development should address education, health
care, family planning, and nutrition
□ Women perform unpaid labor as well as paid
labor with net benefit to communities
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

16. Gender in Development
(GAD) Perspective
□ Gender discrimination is socially constructed
□ Focus on intra-household relations of productive
and reproductive work to understand impact of
development on households
□ Shift focus to gender relations and making social
reproduction visible allows policymakers to see
where it “pays” to deliver resources to women
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

17. Women’s Rights
□ Feminism has impacted the development agenda but
economic progress for women has stopped
□ Social well-being deteriorated in many cases
□ 1989 UN World Survey on the Role of Women in
Development: economic progress for women has
stopped; social well-being has deteriorated in many
cases
□ 2011 UN Women Report claimed more than half of
working women in the world (600 million) have
insecure jobs without legal protection
© SAGE Publications, 2011.

18. Food Sovereignty Movement
□ 1 billion people remain food insecure
□ 6 corporations handle 85% of world grain trade
□ Food sovereignty movements resist the global
conception of food security
□ Aim to protect local farming and revitalize democratic,
cultural, and ecological processes
□ Example: Via Campesina – 200 million farmers’
transnational movement advances farmers’ collective
rights and biodiversity
□ Food self-reliance is prioritized over trade
□ Most significant chapter of Via Campesina: The Brazilian
landless workers’ movement (MST)
© SAGE Publications, 2011.