MA

Development Studies 2011-2012 Institute of Development Studies, Brighton Alexandra Wanjiku Kelbert September 2012

Beyond the North-South divide: exploring alternative discourses in development An analysis of the articulation of the local and the global in the Confdration Paysannes agricultural narrative in France
Key words: France, development, agriculture, social movement, Confdration Paysanne, narratives, binaries, North/South, local/global. Word count: 10756

Synopsis
Over the years, the key debate pertaining to the issue of agriculture has tended to revolve around a North/South divide, typically located at the global level of World Trade Organisation roundtables, whereby two distinct and seemingly homogenous blocs have emerged: one flooded with subsidies and whose farmers fight for more privileges, the other struggling for a level-playing field and access to such privileges. While the division of the world into a rich and exploitative North and a poor and exploited South has given rise to politically important geographies of development, it is crucial that dominant binary narratives do not block out alternative accounts of the issue of agriculture. Indeed, the case study of the Confdration Paysanne, a French farmers union, shows that this binary distinction can and indeed has been challenged so as to recognise more complex interactions. Thus, by looking at the work and vision of the organisation, this paper points to the existence of different understandings of the relationship between the local and the global, the here and the there.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those who participated in the research process and agreed to take part in interviews. Special thanks to Genevive Savigny for helping me establish initial contact with some members of the Confdration Paysanne thus making the writing of this paper possible. Many thanks to my family, Farhang Morady and Marcus for their continued support. Thanks also to those at IDS that reminded me that it was possible to reconcile theory with practice, academia with activism, and that there was no reason why France shouldnt be in the picture too. My greatest thank you goes to Kas (Maria Cascant-Sempere, Participation Power and Social Change Team), and the invaluable supervision I received, which made the process of dissertation writing a fun and exciting one.

List of abbreviations and acronyms

AoA ADEAR ATTAC CAP CP CPE EU Agreement on Agriculture Association pour le Dveloppement de lEmploi Agricole et Rural Association for the Tobin Tax for the Aid of Citizens Common Agricultural Policy Confdration Paysanne Coordination Paysanne Europenne European Union Coordination Europenne Via Campesina Fdration Associative pour le Dveloppement de l'Emploi Agricole et Rural Fdration Nationale des Syndicats dExploitants Agricoles General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade United Nations United States 2008 World Development Report World Trade Organisation World Social Forum

Eurovia FADEAR FNSEA GATT UN US

WDR08 WTO WSF

Contents
Synopsis Acknowledgements List of abbreviations and acronyms 2 3

1. Introduction 2. Theoretical framework

2.1 2.2 2.3

8 Power, knowledge and the role of alternative narratives 8 Dominant binaries: North/South and local/global dualism 10 Dominant narrative in agriculture 13

3. Methodology
3.1 3.2

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15 16 16

3.2.1 Overall method: the Case study 3.2.2 Data and techniques used: literature review and interviews 17 3.3 Participation and limitations 18 3.3.1 Participatory nature of the study 18 3.3.2 Limitations 19

Positionality and criteria for case selection Method

4. Case study: La Confdration Paysanne

4.1 4.2 4.3

20 Origins 20 Evolution, narrative and model 22 Beyond binaries in agricultural narratives: a critique of the CAP 25

5. Analysis: Think local (/global), act global (/local)?

5.1
5.1.1 Acting at different levels 5.1.2 An integrated thinking 5.2 Pros and cons of acting and thinking in multiple levels 5.3 Multi-levelled thinking in action

Acting and thinking in multiple levels

28 28 28 30 32 33 35 37 37 38

6. Conclusion

7. Appendices
7.1 7.2

List of interviewees Bibliography

1. Introduction
As a student of Development Studies, I have always been critically interested in the strict dichotomy between here and there, especially being myself a Franco-Kenyan testimony to the permeability of these allegedly distinctive spheres. Many scholars and non-scholars have repeatedly pointed to a North-South divide, or a local/global dichotomy (Potter et al., 2004:28), thus creating a distinction between different localities. If the purpose of this study is not to negate the differences characterising specific geographical areas, peoples and practices, it is important to question the validity of such frameworks, when narratives and framings such as the North-South divide come to play a role in the way issues arising in the global context are understood and framed. In particular, the aim of this paper is to look at voices that challenge such dualist narratives and the often-assumed homogeneity of binary entities. There are different facets to the dominant narrative in development, the one surrounding agricultural models being one of them. Over the years, the key debate pertaining to the issue of agriculture mainly revolved around a North/South divide, exemplified by the case of the global dispute over agricultural subsidies. From there, the story of two distinguishable and respectively homogenous camps has emerged, typically opposing the North flooded with subsidies and whose principal actors fight for their privileges, and the South whose farmers are struggling for a level-playing field that would give them access to such privileges (see World Bank, 2007:96). The belief held in this study is that such binaries erase the diversity of experiences, aspirations and subjectivities of different actors. As such, this paper shows that this North-South dichotomy is being challenged. Indeed, through a case study of the Confdration Paysanne, a farmers union in France, this paper points to the existence of different understandings of the relationship between the local and the global, the here and the there. Thus, this study is an attempt to broaden the lens through which the issue of agriculture in development is often understood and provides a space for alternative narratives to be heard. This paper is structured as follows: The first section introduces the theoretical framework supporting this study. The first part outlines the assumption underpinning this paper that the creation of alternative

narratives constitutes an important strategy of resistance, by looking at the concepts of power, knowledge and resistance, and the role of narratives and discourses. Using literature produced by scholars of globalisation, geography and development, the second part introduces the dominant binaries this paper seeks to challenge, namely the North/South and local/global binaries. In light of the arguments put forth in the previous part on power and knowledge, the third part introduces what is here understood as the dominant binary narrative in development in the field of agriculture. The second section outlines the methodological considerations arising from this study. As such, it makes explicit the purpose of the study, and explains the criteria for the selection the Confdration Paysanne as a case study. It then goes on to put forward the methods used for the making of this study. Finally, issues pertaining to participation as well as the limitations of the study are exposed. The third section presents the case study of the Confdration Paysanne, divided into three parts. The first part relates the origins of the organisation, and its position within the French political landscape. The second part situates the organisation within the French altermondialiste movement, and goes on to look at the evolution as well as the narrative and model put forth by the Confdration. Finally, the third part looks at what makes it alternative, by specifically exploring the articulation of the local and the global, as well as the North and the South in the narrative put forth by the organisation. The fourth section articulates a conceptual analysis of the case study of the Confdration Paysanne. By showing how the organisation challenges binaries in the way it does not act local or global, and in the way it does not think global or local, this section shows how the Confdration is engaged in resistance to what is here understood as the dominant binary narrative in agriculture. The final claim is that the organisations endeavour to act and think on multiple levels can only be apprehended through a framework that recognises the interconnectedness and multiplicity of levels of the Confdration Paysannes engagement beyond binaries. Drawing briefly on the main elements put forth, the conclusion of this study calls for the broadening of the narratives surrounding development, and for alternative voices that go beyond the cage of binaries to be heard.

2. Theoretical framework
2.1 Power, knowledge and the role of alternative narratives

This section outlines the assumption underpinning this paper that the creation of alternative narratives constitutes an important strategy of resistance. For the purposes of this paper, it is crucial to conceptualise power, domination and resistance in relation to discourse and hegemony and thus explain the role of dominant and alternative narratives in development (Howarth, 2010:309). There are different understandings of the concept of power, of which the agency and the structural view prevail (Lukes, 1974:11) The former, put forth by scholars such as Weber and Dahl, sees power as a coercive force, the capacity of one agent to induce another into an action that they would not otherwise have done (Ibid:30-31). The latter posits that power is embedded in institutions, structures and norms, rather than being an agents capacity over another (Haugaard, 2003:87-88). Michel Foucaults seminal work on the concept of power departed from both views, going beyond the debates of agency and structure. His specific focus on power analysis through discourse and knowledge constitutes the underpinning frame of the analysis of this paper. Foucault argued that power was relational in essence (Foucault, 1976:96), as encapsulated by this often-cited quote: Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere (Ibid:93). Foucault argued power was not merely a repressive force, but rather a creative one, capable of producing forms of knowledge and discourse, which in turn were central to the production and reproduction of social relations (Rabinow, 1991:61). Here the notion of discourse departs from that ordinarily used by linguists, in that it is not only about systems of meaning and representation. Rather, it constitutes an ontological category, encompassing ways of thinking and doing, thus becoming an articulatory practice organising social relations and practice (Howarth, 2010:311). Discourse produces knowledge through language and thus, meaning is constituted by power through discourse (Hall, 1997:44). Conversely, what Foucault called regimes of truth, or historical mechanisms that produce dominant discourses, sustain dominant forms of

power (Rabinow, 1991:72-73). Thus, power flows through discourse and behind each narrative or discourse are power relations. Similarly, Bourdieu used the terms orthodoxy and doxa to refer to the way in which particular views of the world are established as normal, natural and unquestioned truths, through sets of propositions assumed and never questioned (Bourdieu, cited in Jones, 2006:14). Dominant ideology thesis posits that in each society, a set of beliefs dominates all others, thus tending to inhibit the development of radical political dissent or alternatives (Abercrombie and Turner, 1978:149). The concept of hegemony also provides a similar framework through which to understand power in narratives. The Gramscian notion of hegemony is a form of rule through which a regime or practice can hold sway over a set of subjects by winning their consent or securing their compliance (Howarth, 2010:317). Hegemony ensures the maintenance of social order through cultural domination (Gramsci, 1971:80). If the focus of this paper is not social order as such1, Gramscis concept is interesting when looking at the dominance of narratives over others. For knowledge to be powerful, it has to be hegemonic, in other words, it has to be accepted as legitimate to some degree (Sharp, 2000:110). Indeed, it is through the idea of consent, which enables to go beyond power as coercion (Burawoy, 2012:59), that the role of knowledge and narratives becomes explicit. Taking into consideration the concepts of regimes of truth, doxa or hegemonic discourses in relation to power, the creation of counter-knowledge or counter- narratives becomes an avenue for resistance (Rabinow, 1991:74). Indeed, it follows from such theoretical understandings that resistance arises through the assertion of the possibility of constituting a new politics of truth, or as Bourdieu argued by making possible the existence of competing possibles (Bourdieu, 1977:169). Thus the elaboration of and struggle for competing or alternative narratives constitutes an important role and indeed strategy in shaping social practice.
1 Gramsci developed the concept of hegemony to explain the absence of socialist revolutions in

Western capitalist societies (Storey 2009:79).

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2.2

Dominant binaries: North/South and local/global dualism

Following an outline of the globalisation debates, this section introduces the local/global binary thinking that shapes most of development thought (Cloke and Johnston, 2005:15). This binary is then linked to the North/South divide, after what the concept of the glocal is introduced. Held and McGrew provide a useful working definition of the phenomenon: Globalisation may be thought of initially as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual (2007:2-3). There are different ways of making sense of globalisation. Typically, two camps have been identified, the sceptics and the hyperglobalists. The latter see globalisation with its intensity and scope, as an unprecedented process with dramatic impact on societies and the world economy (Burawoy, 2010:338). Sceptics have rejected that view, arguing instead that the 1980s onwards the era of globalisation- only reflect the continuation of the shaping of the world by powerful actors and forces according to historical geopolitical considerations (Thompson and Reuveny, 2010:5). These views in themselves represent opposite readings that exclude contextual readings of globalisation. This oppositional rather than nuanced analysis can also be seen through discussions pertaining to the role of the State in globalisation. Debates surrounding the significance of globalisation have also fed into a global imagination of different sites of action, such as the local/global binary. To survive the world, we simplify it. Such is the claim made by Cloke and Johnston (2005). This strategy, they explain, is a particular case of classifying and categorising as a means to cope with complexity (Ibid:1). They go on to argue that thinking in categories of which binary thinking is the most extreme case- is necessary to simplify the world in order to begin to understand it (Ibid:5). Binary structures establish relations of opposition and exclusion instead of interconnection and similarities between the two terms involved. Thus, binary thinking often conveys uncritical accounts of power relations (Ibid:12). Looking at the discipline of development, John Saul argues against the common tendency to offer diagnoses of global inequality in terms of binaries such as

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globalisation vs. state, or development vs. under-development, which he refers to as false binaries (2004:221). He criticises such tendency as unhelpful in establishing a target against which struggle can be directed. Kevin Cox goes further in his analysis of what he calls the local/global dualism as part of spatial imaginaries, what he sees as ways of conceiving space, which have political intent (2005:175-176). For him, one of the ways in which the globalisation debate has developed has been through a softening of contrasts. At the core of the issue lies the notion of geographical scale, as large vs. small or as macro-, meso- and micro-. Cox lists different conceptualisations of the relationship between the local and the global, based on a binary understanding of the two terms (Ibid:176). He sees this binary in the notion that the global produces the local a view close to that of the hyperglobalists -, or the reverse (eg. adoption of best practice on a large scale with its origins in the local), the global used for local advantage (eg. foreign investment), the local used for global advantage (eg. land grab). These notions are based on reified views of space, in which the local and the global are understood as distinctly opposite (Ibid:180-187). Furthermore, Cox explains that the local/global binary has tended to go aligned with various other dualisms, such as the national/international binary (Ibid:181). The author of this paper believes that one such associated binary is the North/South divide. Indeed, underlying the North/South divide is the idea of a distinctive nature of the two entities, thus giving rise to their being used as mutually exclusive categories. Furthermore, another way to make sense of the North/South binary is to understand both entities as belonging to the scale of the local. Thus, both North and South as separate entities form respective locales, while potentially constituting a global when combined. As such, one can understand the mutually reinforcing nature of both local/global and North/South binaries, and indeed the similarity of the underlying assumptions underpinning their use. Cox denounces the polarized and seemingly absolute categories of the global and the local, rather than seeing them in relational terms (1997:10). Similarly, Robertson argues that debates surrounding globalisation revolve around the assumption that the global overrides the local. Yet, he states that the global is not in and of itself counterposed to the local but rather what is often referred to as the local is essentially included within

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the global (Roberston, 1995:35). Such views have formed the basis for the emergence of a new concept, the glocal, articulating the interconnectedness of global and local. Glocalisation can be understood as the simultaneous processes of globalisation and localisation (Blatter, 2006:358). Using a glocal lens helps in building a more complex and integrated analysis of the interactions occurring between different levels beyond limited oppositions. The following section outlines the dominant narrative based on the abovementioned binaries and main actors involved in the field of agriculture in development.

2.3

Dominant narrative in agriculture

Based on the previous sections of this chapter, this section introduces what is here seen as the dominant narrative of agriculture in development and the main actors at play. The model promoted by international institutions in the field of development (World Bank, WTO) and in particular the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is introduced. In development, what are referred in the paper as dominant views or narratives, define on a large scale what is wrong and how it must be put right (KNOTS Team 2007:10). One way of identifying the dominant narrative at play in a particular field is to look at the regime authorities operating in that sphere. In the case of agriculture, one can argue that there is a dominant structure in charge of creating knowledge and practices on a large scale. What can be referred to here as the agro-food regime, includes the norms and rules governing international agro-food transactions, and reflects a specific narrative (McMichael, 1992:344). It is also crucial to understand the structural factors underpinning the organisation of the regime. In this case, agencies like the World Bank, the United Nations, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) loom large, as key regulatory institutions (Cooke et al., 2009:2). The latter in particular is stage to some of the most important debates pertaining to the global governance of agriculture and paramount to the way agriculture is conceptualised in development.

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The 1995 Agreement on Agriculture is one of the four principal protocols of the WTO (McMichael, 2012:138). At the core of the protocol is a call to universally reduce trade protections, farm subsidies and government intervention, in line with the liberal agenda of the multilateral organisation (Ibid:138). However, the EU, the US and countries with the ability to pay, impose tariffs and non-tariffs barriers, thus restricting imports of foods domestically produced, and subsidise exports (Millstone et al. 2009:6). Northern subsidies that finance overproduction and surplus export or dumping-, have long been at the centre of a conflict often understood as opposing producing and consuming nations on a typically North/South axis (see World Bank, 2007:96). This dominant narrative rests on strong binaries (North/South, developed/developing etc.). In the EU in particular, in the realm of public policy, the system of production subsidies and subsidised scale economies the ability to lower the costs of production by scaling- up - is understood as a means to maintain an efficient and productive agricultural sector (Coleman et al., 1997, cited in Daugbjerg and Swinbank, 2009:7-8). As such, through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), revenue-increasing and cost-reducing measures have been put in place, of which France is the main beneficiary (Toute LEurope, 2011). Here it is important to make explicit the role and model of agriculture put forward and encouraged by the CAP and more generally by the global agriculture regime authorities listed above. Initiated in 1962, the CAP was initially launched to protect European farmers from international price shocks, and progressively went on to encourage a model of agricultural development based on modernisation and intensification (McMichael, 2012:265). This system initially based on price regulations, enabled an increase in agricultural production, and latter surpluses in some commodities. At present, and after a major reform in 2003, which largely replaced price regulations by direct transfers, the CAP encourages the development of intensive agriculture, geared towards export, with priority being given to large exploitations (Boulanger 2005:1). The CAP represents between 40 and 50 percent of the EUs budget (Jomini et al., 2009:3). At the core of the scheme is an incentive-system for farmers to produce more (World Bank, 2007:97). This model is in line with the model of agriculture identified by Thompson and Scoones as dominating policy discourses and influencing the trajectory of agricultural development, at the intersection of two narratives respectively centred on technology

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and growth (2009:389). Raj Patel explains that what characterises such a dominant policy trajectory is a modernisation paradigm encouraging large-scale commercial farming to the detriment of smallholder agriculture (Patel, 2007:24). In a review of the 2008 World Development Report on Agriculture (WDR08), McMichael argues that the new agriculture for development promoted in the report is governed by market intensification through agribusiness and aided by the State (2009:236). In essence, the WDR08 rests on the initiatives of private entrepreneurs in extensive value chains on a global scale, and a drive for cheap gets cheaper by international agribusiness capital (Rizzo, 2009:288). The model of agriculture explicitly or implicitly promoted by the CAP rests on similar principles pertaining to intensification and productivity, and a strict focus on production. In this paper, productivism is understood as the drive to increase output without limit and the consequent search for ever more efficient methods of production, which takes precedence over all other considerations, whether social, health-related or environmental (Herman and Kuper, 2002:4). One way to conceptualise the dominant narrative in agriculture is through Robert Chambers things-people framework (Chambers, 2010) The belief held in this paper is that in practice, agriculture has been dominated by a things paradigm, and treated as a part, with top-down, standardised approaches imposed on a diverse range of people and conditions. Indeed, the value of agriculture has tended to revolve around its contribution to economic growth and production intensification. This can be seen for instance in Robert Zoellicks foreword to the WDR08 (World Bank, 2008:xiii). The productivist and things-focused nature of the dominant model of agriculture has been critiqued by various actors, one of which is the French Confdration Paysanne.

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3. Methodology
3.1 Positionality and criteria for case selection
In order for the reader to understand the purpose of this study, I think it is important to provide some information on my personal interest in the topic. The original idea behind this dissertation was guided by my experience growing up in Brittany (France) and witnessing the strategies and resistance of some farmers unions against government policies. The way I made sense of those, and the explanations I was often given made me think of such actions as somehow homogenous. I was often told those farmers were fighting for more subsidies. And indeed, some were. When a decade later I started investigating into the discourses of those actors I had seen spilling milk and blocking roundabouts with vegetables, my assumptions were crucially challenged by the diversity and the originality of some of the narratives I encountered. In fact, at first I thought of focusing my research on the FNSEA (Fdration Nationale des Syndicats dExploitants Agricoles, National Federation of Farmers Unions), the largest farmers union in France, as a social movement. However, the more I read the organisations official publications, the less interested I was in its struggle. Instead my interest was aroused by the critiques of the FNSEA put forth by others. This is how I came to know of, or to rediscover, the Confdration Paysanne. Most importantly, it was the alternative nature of its vision that attracted me. I felt it refreshing to read a different narrative, a different story. Here I should also say that I felt I should have known about it before and that it is important that such a voice is heard. This issue of voice is a guiding one in the making of this paper and I find is nowhere clearer than when in 365 pages of the WDR08 mentioned previously, Via Campesina, an international farmers union and despite its claiming to represent 200 million farmers (Via Campesina, 2011) is mentioned only once, in a text-box (see World Bank, 2007:211). As such, in writing about the Confdration Paysanne, I hope to contribute to filling a knowledge gap, in that I find there is little written in the general development literature specifically about the Confdration and alternative discourses in agriculture. Another interest of mine is to challenge the binary understanding of the world in a North and a South. Indeed, as mentioned in the introduction, I am from neither and both the North and the South, and have therefore grown to feel alienated from this dualism. Thus, as a Development student, I have been drawn to critiques of the

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North/South binary, which have formed the backbone of my frame of thought throughout my studies. Here, a note should be made of my positionality in this paper and in the research process. As a young brown middle-class woman, it is possible that my gender, class and origins might have impacted on some of my interactions with members of the organisation. However, it is my very positionality that made me look for those interactions. Indeed, being aware of my positionality as a young, transnational, educated woman, but most importantly having only engaged with the Confdrations struggle on an intellectual level, it was important for me to seek discussions with members and spokespeople from the Confdration. Eventually, the few interviews conducted created a dialogue, that helped frame, build and challenge this paper, integrating views from within. Thus, the rest of this paper seeks to unpack the story of the Confdration Paysanne, see what makes it alternative and what it has to offer to the field of development.

3.2

Method

3.2.1 Overall method: the Case study

This paper consists of the case study of a specific organisation, providing a more extreme than paradigmatic case, in that the organisation it is here argued- lies outside of the dominant sphere of praxis and discourse. As such, it is important to look at the issue associated with case studies. In a paper on common misunderstandings around case studies, Bent Flyvberg argues that the case study is a methodology in its own right, a position which he contrasts with a conventional view that case studies are subordinate to larger-scale investigations (2011:301). Flyvberg explains that the conventional view states that a case study cannot provide reliable information about the broader class of phenomena (Penguin Dictionary of Sociology, cited in Flyvberg, 2011:301). Rather, he explains that if a case study is indeed a detailed examination of a single example it is important to challenge the arguments that undermine the credibility and use of the method (Ibid:302). He thus states that: One can often generalise on the basis of a single case, and the case study may be central to scientific development via generalisation as supplement or alternative to other methods. But formal generalisation is overvalued as a

17 source of scientific development, whereas the force of example and transferability are underestimated (Ibid:305).

3.2.2 Data and techniques used: literature review and interviews

Due the nature of this enquiry, this research is based on qualitative methods. Indeed, as was highlighted in the previous chapter, when talking about resistance and alternative narratives, this paper is primarily interested in the existence of competing possibles (Bourdieu, 1977:169). As such, the issue of size and scale is not the primary focus, but rather the detail, richness completeness and variance (Flyvberg, 2011:301), or depth of the one narrative which constitute here the central point. This study is based on a combination of primary and secondary data on a single case, to be able to study it in depth contextually and historically (Burawoy, 1998). Secondary data (literature review) was used to provide the backbone of the theoretical framework on dominant binaries in development, especially in relation to agriculture, as well as to outline the wider theoretical discussions on themes of knowledge, power and resistance. With regards to the Confdration Paysanne in particular, in order to avoid issues of misinterpretation, it was important to understand the organisation the way it portrays itself. As such, information published by the Confdration and related organisations was also used. Some of the interviewees and contacts within the Confdration also sent me some documentation, including reports, books and DVDs, which helped add accuracy to the portrayal and analysis of the organisation. Similarly, in order to strengthen the depth of the case study, I collected primary data directly from members, so as to both triangulate with the secondary data, and go further in the analysis of the narratives of the organisation and its members. As such, three one-on-one in-depth open-ended2 interviews were conducted, each lasting one to two hours. One was made over Skype and the two others face-to-face. Enabling the participants to relate their stories and express their views freely was crucial in my quest for accuracy and detail. Participants were identified through a snowballing technique, with initial contact made over email with the responsible of human resources at the national office. People with different roles in the organisation
2 I had prepared a list of potential question to serve as a backdrop, but not as a main interview

guide, useful for the start of the interview especially with a shy interviewee.

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took part (national/European spokesperson, departmental spokesperson and local coordinator - see Appendix). All participants were farmers themselves. Ethical considerations for the conduct of the interviews included: informed consent, appropriate level of confidentiality (with the option to anonymise the data), respectful behaviour as well as faithful interpretation and representation of informants expressed views to the extent possible.

3.3

Participation and limitations

3.3.1 Participatory nature of the study

The development of participatory approaches to research stemmed out of a methodological critique of issues of agency, representation and power (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995:1667). Thus, what is distinctive about participatory research does not lie in its methods, but rather on the methodological contexts of their application and the location of power in the various stages of the research process (Ibid:1667-1668). From there, a distinction can be made between positivist and participatory approaches to research. In the former, the researcher remains a disinterested scientist, for whom action lies outside of her/his responsibility (Guba and Lincoln, 2005:196-198). Participatory research however is based on the premise of rejecting purely extractive methods, and instead recognising the researcher as a participant. Thereby, action becomes crucial in the project of research, and is intertwined with the validity of the enquiry. As such, this project is based on my own subjectivity as a researcher, and indeed my stated interest in the evolution of the Confdration Paysanne. Cornwall and Jewkes explain that there is considerable fluctuation between poles from what I would call purely extractive to purely participatory, in practicing participatory research. This, they argued suggests that the difference between modes of research may be more to do with the degree rather than kind (1995:1668). Thus, they offer a continuum of participation through which to make sense of the extent, level and scope of participation in research projects. In the case of this research, it is possible to identify varying degrees of participation at its different stages. In the initial stage, I formulated the research question, based on publications by the organisation, which gave me a topic to focus on, namely the different articulation of the North/South, local/global relationship. Due to time and physical constraints, I was unable to work close enough with the organisation to be able to co-

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produce this paper or get input in the first stages of the research (theoretical framework, choice of methods). Burawoy points to the importance of putting oneself in the picture, and outlines the dangers of domination of the researchers view over that of the researched (1998:22). Strategies to overcome domination include the return of findings and the inclusion of feedback to the final account. As such, the project becomes an interaction of the accounts of both the researcher and the researched (Cascant-Sempere, 2011:4). From there, my collaboration with the organisation can be seen in my exchanges with Genevive Savigny, former national secretary for the Confdration, who confirmed and helped further my analysis of the organisations articulation of the relationship between the local and the global. I also offered to share the final outcome document, as well as a shortened version in French to the organisation and the people I interviewed. Farrington and Bebbington add another element of scale of participation from narrow to wide, depending on the number of people involved (cited in Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995:1669). In this study, given time and logistical constraints it was difficult to enlarge the scale and number of participants and therefore I would argue that this research was based on a narrow scale of participation.

3.3.2 Limitations
Going back to some elements mentioned above, the key limitations of this study involve the time and logistical constraints of not having enough time to organise interviews on a larger scale. More interviews could have been conducted over Skype, however, I believe that given the nature of my enquiry, it was crucial to establish a relationship with the participants and establish a climate of trust and dialogue so as to grasp the deeper notions entrenched in the Confdrations narrative and that of its members and supporters. As such, only one interview was conducted over Skype.

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4. Case study: La Confdration Paysanne

4.1 Origins
The Confdration Paysanne -or Confdration- is a French farmers union. As an agricultural syndicate, its aim is to defend the interests of farmers. It is a minority union in the French political landscape, although only preceded by the FNSEA, and strongly anchored to the left of the political spectrum (Bruneau, 2004:112). In order to understand the emergence of the Confdration on the French political landscape, it is crucial to grasp the context that led to its creation in 1987. Historically, in France, unionism has played a crucial role in mobilising and integrating the peasantry in the national public sphere and continues to do so (Hervieu et al., 2010). Founded in 1946, the FNSEA is the largest farmers union in France and has dominated the union landscape since its inception. The FNSEA has been the main interlocutor between farmers and the state, claiming representation of the voice of French farmers. Critiques of the FNSEA as put forward by rival syndicates such as the Coordination Rurale pertain mainly to its co-gestion or engagement with the State, rather than being a counter-power to the State (Bruneau, 2004:245,279). Challenges to the FNSEA have come from both its right from the Coordination Rurale and its Left, from the Confdration Paysanne (Ibid:279), which argues that it puts the self-interests of the large grain, beef and sugar producers above the interests of society as a whole (Herman and Kuper, 2002:xviii). The Confdration Paysanne was founded in 1987, as an alternative to the politics of the FNSEA. The split from the majoritarian union rested on ideological positions, and a will to challenge the productivist agricultural model pursued over the past forty years. Here, special attention should be drawn to the name of the organisation, and to the semantic difference between agriculteur and paysan. In spoken French, paysan is often used to refer to a traditional, non-progressive attitude, but is not pejorative when used in a political context. Agriculteur whose closest translation in English would be farmer - is a more technical, professional depiction of modern life in the countryside (Berger, 1972:4), best applied to modernised agriculture. In essence, paysan refers to what can be understood as smallholder, often more traditional agriculture. Martin explains that there was a shift in language in the 1980s away from defending the agriculteur to the

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paysan, which clearly distinguished the paysannerie (peasantry) from industrial, often large-scale agriculture (Martin, 2004:121).3 This shift in the discourse is characteristic of the model put forth by the Confdration, further explored later. The ideological foundations of the union since its inception, and in fact, the reasons for the split with the FNSEA rest mainly on an anti-corporatist agenda, often framed in terms of an opposition to the myth of peasantry unity (mythe de lunit paysanne), which characterises the FNSEA, and leaves unexamined the differences between farmers (Martin, 2004:111-112). Rather, for the Confdration, rural professions are unalienable from the rest of society, feeding into the belief in the commonality of interests between workers in different sectors and the need for a common struggle (Lambert, 1970:155). The fight for workers rights, or against shale gas and water waste are such common issues (Chatillon, interview). Another reason for the split is the notion of international solidarity within the peasantry, and the idea that other non-French small farmers may experience similar conditions and struggles. As such, the Confdrations critique of European agricultural subsidies, which is explored further below, is based on the idea that it is socially unjust and socially detrimental in all parts of the globe (Martin, 2004:113-114). Thus, its main slogan is for a peasant agriculture and in defence of its workers (Confdration Paysannes website, translated from French). From the 1980s onwards, the Confdration granted special attention to the development of relations with other peasant unions internationally. Its own engagement against the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the EU and the liberalisation of agricultural exchanges has led it to become a member of the Coordination Paysanne Europenne (CPE, later Coordination Europenne Via Campesina, or Eurovia). Through the CPE, the Confdration was involved in the globalisation of the peasant contestation by participating in the creation in 1992 of La Via Campesina, an international farmers organisation, fighting neoliberalism and defending sustainable agriculture (El-Ojeili and Hayden, 2006:191). The Confdration was also a key actor in the foundation of ATTAC (Association for the Tobin Tax for the Aid of Citizens) in 1998. Originally, ATTAC revolved around the
3 In this paper, the term farmer is used for the sake of clarity. However, the author believes it to

be important to call attention to the semantic difference.

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creation of a tax on financial investments, which would protect against speculative and short-term investments, and be used to help fight social inequalities and bring about development (Agrikolianski et al., 2004:132-133). Today, ATTAC is an umbrella organisation represented in all EU countries, and with more than 80,000 members around the world. Its aims have broadened to include debt-cancellation and reform/abolition of the WTO. In turn, ATTAC participated in the establishing of the first World Social Forum (WSF). In order to understand the link between the Confdration Paysanne and the various organisations listed above (Via Campesina, ATTAC, WSF), it is crucial to look briefly at the relationship between the Confdration and the altermondialiste (alter- globalisation) movement in France. This relationship provides a lens through which to further explore the narrative put forth by the Confdration Paysanne.

4.2 Evolution, narrative and model

This section locates the Confdration Paysannes struggle within the wider context of the French altermondialiste movement and then, following a brief chronology of the organisations evolution, goes on to sketch out the model put forth by the Confdration. The altermondialiste movement in France can be located within the context of a new wave of protestation and contestation characteristic of the 1990s.4 Contrary to other movements, the altermondialiste movement cannot be associated with an institution, nor does it constitute a structured and autonomous space. Rather, it was established through moments of contention, such as the series of meetings and reunions (counter- summits, social forums) that took place between 1989 and 2001, which witnessed a convergence of existing struggles and aspirations, claims and interests (Agrikoliansky et al., 2004:38). The altermondialiste movement was first and foremost a counter- movement, articulating different stakes (eg. economic development, socio-
4 After what Agrikoliansky et al. characterise as an apathetic decade, the 1990s in France were

marked by a series of groupings and convergences towards critiques of globalisation and issue- based movements around the cause of Third-World debt, AIDS, sans-papiers, or unemployment (2004:35).

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environmental issues) on the basis of the interdependence of human actions at the global level (Ibid:48). In France, at the end of the 1990s, the movement went through a semantic change from being called anti-globalisation to alter-globalisation, to highlight its ability not just to object but to propose (Terral, 2011:265-266). At the core of the movement is the idea that there is a need to connect the ills of the South to those of the North. This can be seen through the various actions to address the Sans (without), referring to marginalised groups wherever they may be, that go un-documented or without-food or shelter. According to Terral, the two main points of contention addressed by the altermondialiste movement are: deregulated (neoliberal) globalisation and productivist agriculture (Ibid:260), or in the words of Genevive Savigny, the question of the mode of development [neoliberalism] and of production [productivism](interview). With such a focus, in France, the Confdration Paysanne, as the inheritor of anticapitalist peasant organisations that fought in the 1970s, plays a major role in the French altermondialiste movement (Martin, 2004:107). The organisations public profile was built on big activist events. Even prior to its split from the FNSEA, a small group of farmers occupied the Larzac Plateau, to protest against the selling of agricultural land to expand a military base as decided by the government, without consulting the local population. The Larzac was successfully occupied from 1971 until 1981, until the government cancelled the plans, and today represents a bastion of resistance for France and globally (it was the site of an anti-WTO meeting in 2003). Ten years after the creation of the Confdration, a first action against genetically modified (GM) crops was led, which involved the cutting down of GM crops fields. On the 12th August 1999, the building site of a McDonalds was occupied; its components were disassembled and transported to the sub-prefecture. Slogans were painted all over the building. This was an illegal action with real but limited property damage, and no violence on people. If there were judicial implications, this highly symbolic action led to the coming together of ecologists, consumers, labour and peasant unions, protesters from all over the world (Martin, 2004:134). Jos Bov, a unionist and peasant activist who had led of the action, and had been involved in the Larzac occupation and several anti-GM actions, was suddenly propelled to the fore of the French political scene. In his public speeches and declarations around

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the McDonalds action, he made a clear link between the global peasant struggle and the altermondialiste movement. Similarly, Franois Dufour, the national spokesperson for the Confdration at the time who later became vice-president of ATTAC-, made explicit the connection between the organization and the problems he associated with neoliberal globalization (Bruneau, 2004:118-119). The McDonalds action had a huge media impact. Bovs personal qualities as the emblematic frontman as well as the various actions led thereafter enabled the altermondialiste movement and the Confdration to reach a wider audience (Martin, 2004:108). Franois Purseigle explains that the agricultural world seems to compensate its reduced capacity for mobilisation on a large scale, given its limited number, by focusing on militant action, and media impact (2010:139). The rhetoric used around the actions led by the Confdration Paysanne makes evident the similarities of thought between the Confdration and altermondialisme. To understand those connections, it is important to turn to the stated aims of the Confdration. Contrary to productivist notions narrowly centred on the value of production, the Confdrations model differs in its attributing three values or functions to agriculture: production, employment and preservation. These functions can be linked to the three dimensions (social, economic and environmental) at the core of the organisations vision for a sustainable agriculture (CP and FADEAR, 2003:3). The Confdration fights to promote a vision of agriculture that addresses effectively the needs of society in terms of food, but also of the life in rural areas, services (eg territorial management) and the quality and diversity of the environment. In the early 2000s, and following the 1999 events which led to the opening of a discursive space for those in the movement already inclined towards the global dimension of the local struggles, the dominant line of argument was the need for a significant change in the agricultural policy at the international level (CAP and WTO). This line would enable the realisation of the objectives pursued by the organisation, of preserving the number of smallholder farmers -in France, in Europe and in the world-, through the control (matrise) of production. This aimed to regulate the markets and stabilise prices, but also bring a rupture with the productivist model of agriculture and its consequences on products (ie. quality of food) and the environment (Bruneau, 2004:127).

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This rupture came from the Confdrations different attribution of values to the three functions of agriculture that it identifies, which for instance give employment, or the protection of farmers, intrinsic value. In fact, the stated assumption of the organisation is that there cannot be sustainable agriculture in the context of smallholder disappearance.5 The belief here is that small and medium-sized farms are the only guarantee of a type of agriculture respectful of the environment and able to provide a diversity of foodstuff (Herman and Kuper, 2002:96). The organisation refers to its model as peasant agriculture (Agriculture Paysanne) (CP and FADEAR, 2003; CP, 2007). This model is in line with the concept of Food Sovereignty6 first proposed by Via Campesina in 1996. The idea of Food Sovereignty encompasses a critique of neoliberal politics and provides a different framework for organising food and agricultural policies internationally, regionally and locally (Nylni Europe Movement and Eurovia, 2012:i). In all three functions inherent to the model of peasant agriculture production, employment and preservation-, one can observe the centrality of people. Indeed, in the words of the Nylni Declaration, the needs and aspirations of those who produce, distribute and consume food are put at the heart of food systems and policies (Nylni Europe Movement and Eurovia, 2012:i). Arguably, this goes in contrast with the dominant neoliberal value attributed to agriculture as a motor for economic growth and to the intensification of production as the way to address food security depicted in section 2.3. This focus on people as opposed to things is most evident in the Confdrations critique of the CAP, which is the focus of the next section.

4.3

Beyond binaries in agricultural narratives: a critique of the CAP

The focus on the global has been subject to internal contestation within the Confdration, converging around the debate of identity, and whether the role of the Confdration should be to fight for a professional identity (farmers fighting in the
5 In the Gers, the number of farmers has fallen from around 13,600 in the late 1980s to about

4800 today. According to the Confdrations spokesperson in the Gers, for each new farmer, there are 3 or 4 departures (Chatillon, interview). 6 The Declaration of Nylni 2007 states that Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. (Nylni Declaration, cited in Nylni Europe Movement and Eurovia 2012:i)

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interests of farmers) or if it should be a political identity (left-wing cross-cutting activism). A militant quoted by Bruneau sketches out the tensions inherent to the Confdration, arguing that the organisation is not the agricultural branch of a social movement, in that it is not guided by the movement, but rather it is a union made of farmers, and for farmers, with a global logic (2004:129). As such, on a larger scale, there has been convergence around the idea that the Confdration is a farmers union within a social movement (Ibid:129). From the outside, commentators notably from the FNSEA have argued that the Confdrations engagement in non-strictly agricultural causes has cost it a seven points drop in the last national syndicate elections in 20077, thus receding from 27.8 to 20.1 percent (Ministre de lAgriculture 2007). For many, the Confdration is considered a radical union, with sometimes extreme positions on controversial issues such as GM cultures or ecology (Coroller, 2001). Bruneau argues that the essentialisation of the Confdration as an alterglobalist organisation ignores a large part of the syndicates interventions (2004). Indeed, at the local level, most of the engagement in terms of time, claims, action and debates tend to revolve not on the global frame of the issues, but rather concerns such as land access for young farmers, distribution of production rights and aid. Thus it is important to see how the organisation articulates the relationship between the local and the global with regards to agriculture. For that purpose, the example used here is the Confdrations critique of the CAP. As outlined in section 2.3, the Common Agricultural Policy was predicated upon a productivist model of agriculture. Soon after it was implemented, the CAP became a way of funding industrialised farmers agriculteurs- at the expense of others, thereby forcing small farmers off the land in the interest of efficient farming. Herman and Kuper explain that the larger the farm, the more it benefits from subsidies, with 40 percent of subsidies going to the large cereal producers, representing less than four percent of the total French farming population (2002:109).
For many, this failure was partly explained by the Confdrations taking position against agrofuel and productivist measures encouraged by the newly elected right-wing government, which has led it to be seen by some as defending the interests of consumers and the environment, rather than that of farmers (Confdration Paysanne 2007:100; Barthomeuf, interview).
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The Confdration goes further in its critique explaining that the price of such a model, is paid not only by the masses of subsistence and small farmers in the Global South, but by small farmers in the North as well (Herman and Kuper, 2002:xvii). In fact, what costs so much today is not the agricultural budget per se, but rather the costs of what are seen by the organisation as disastrous policy choices of an intensive, industrial mode of agricultural production, with substantial environmental spillovers and social consequences (ATTAC and CP 2008:2). As such, the critique of the CAP put forth by the Confdration is first and foremost a critique of the dominant productivist model, with its narrow focus on production, more so than on budget distribution. In a book published for the Confdration, Herman and Kuper state that the critique pertains to the unholy trinity of enlargement, concentration and industrialisation (2002:106). Instead, the organisations vision of an alternative model of agriculture puts small farmers at the heart of agriculture, and encompasses notions of social justice, the preservation of rural jobs, ecological sustainability and international solidarity (Agir Ici and CP, 2005:1). The organisation states that a form of intelligent protectionism, between narrow nationalism and unbridled globalisation, has a role to play, suggesting a framework based on a right to produce that would take into account the number of active workers on the farm. These rights would be allocated between regions and countries (Herman and Kuper, 2002:97-100). Such a proposition highlights the centrality of small farmers not only in productive terms, but also in social terms. The attention given to the social nature of agriculture can be linked to the narrative of solidarity put forward by the organisation. Indeed, it can be argued that most actions undertaken by the Confdration overflow a strict focus on members of the organisation. This can be seen through its involvement at different levels previously mentioned, and its instrumental role in developing alternative policies for agriculture and in working with other groups at different levels (Herman and Kuper, 2002:xviii). This engagement highlights a struggle beyond the confines of the unions base, and the integrated nature of its vision, which does not presuppose a binary relation between the North and the South, or the local and the global. This is further explored in the next chapter.

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5. Analysis: Think local (/global), act global (/local)?

5.1 Acting and thinking in multiple levels

The tagline Think global, act local has been used as a rallying cry for people to consider global issues such as the environment- and take action in their communities. It is one of the altermondialiste slogans, one of ATTACs official chants, and Jos Bovs maxim (Terral, 2011:249). At the core of the slogan is the idea that many locales make a global, and thus it is possible to unite and make a global struggle of the many local ones (Cascant-Sempere, 2012). In other words, this locates power at the global level and the field of action at the local level. In the late 1990s, another tagline emerged, favouring global contestation drawing on multiple locales (Chesters and Welsh, 2006:73). For some scholars including Manuel Castells, based on their framing of the process of globalisation, the field of action for contestation could be located at the global level, hence the need to think local, act global. In a public lecture, Castells explains that We all have local lives. [] We have to think local because thats where we are and act global because thats where the power is.(2012). In the case of the Confdration Paysanne, it is difficult to reduce its actions and thinking to such dichotomies. Despite some speeches and publications using the think global, act local slogan, what emerged from the interviews conducted in the course of this research as well as the analysis of documents produced by the organisation, is that the Confdration Paysanne challenges binaries in two ways. Firstly, in practice, the Confdration works at multiple levels, thus going beyond the local/global dualism. Secondly, its integrated understanding of the issue of agriculture means that it is not seen as characterised by a North/South binary, or a local/global one.

5.1.1 Acting at different levels

The Confdration works a several levels at the same time (Confdration Paysanne 2007:118-119). For the sake of clarity, in this sub-section, the organisations actions are divided by levels, namely the international, European/national and local (departmental and regional), as suggested by Genevieve Savigny (interview). This is used as a baseline for the analysis.

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At the international level, the Confdration Paysannes narrative is put into action mainly through its engagement in Via Campesina. There it furthers its fight for the recognition of the right to food sovereignty and the defence of peasant agriculture and of its workers. In an interview, Genevieve Savigny explained that the idea of food sovereignty is a unifying concept, linking the different struggles of farmers and other peoples and encompassing the quest for a different mode of production, transformation and consumption. In practice, through Via Campesina the Confdration Paysanne and its fellow members engage with international actors such as the WTO or the United Nations, while also taking part in local struggles on the basis of solidarity. At the European level, the Confdration Paysanne is a member of Eurovia, the European branch of Via Campesina. Here it should be stressed that given the European political system, most of the Confdrations work affecting the national level is dealt with at the European level. The struggle against the milk quotas or the CAP mentioned previously constitutes the bulk of the work and actions led by the Confdration Paysanne at the European level. Thus, under the banner of Eurovia, several farmers organisations from around Europe are able to put together their critique of the productivist agenda underlying the CAP and develop alternatives. Conferences and forums are also organised to bring together farmers from different countries and regions, as was the case with the European Nylni forums, as a way to bring together best practices and ideas. Given the existence of regulatory frameworks at the local level, working locally is also necessary. In order to promote its model of peasant agriculture on the ground, the Confdration Paysanne created a federation of associations in the 1980s. The various Association pour le Developpement de lEmploi Agricole et Rural (ADEAR - association for the development of agricultural and rural employment) are based in most French departments. An ADEAR facilitator, referred to the Confdration Paysanne (at the national level) as the thinking head, bringing about the main political axes (Barthomeuf, interview). Thus the role of the ADEARs is to implement these axes on the ground at the local (department and regional) level. One of the key roles of the ADEARs is to provide support and accompaniment for new farmers and for people who decide to settle in as farmers. As such, ADEARs provide training for members and employees of the Confdration, and promote the model of peasant agriculture.

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If the separation of the Confdration Paysannes work in those three levels helps illustrate the way its narrative is put into practice at different levels, it fails to highlight the glocal nature of its work. Indeed, the distinction into the different levels conceals the interconnectedness of those initiatives. As explained by Confdrations spokesperson for the Gers department, the inception of associations and organisations at different levels can be seen as part of a strategy, enabling the Confdration to engage with a wide range of actors and institute a different balance of power (Chatillon, interview). As such, the Confdration is part of an immense and layered network at several levels, often interconnected. Many members of the organisation travel at the European level or internationally for summits and conferences as was the case for instance for the first two Nylni conferences in Austria and in Mali, or when the Confdration officially took part in the 1999 Seattle protests.

5.1.2 An integrated thinking

If the fact that the Confdration Paysanne works at different levels can be understood in terms of a strategy, it is important to understand it with regards to its narrative. Indeed, at the core of the vision of the Confdration Paysanne is the attribution of value to production, employment and preservation (section 4.2), in line with the notion of people paradigm (Chambers, 1997:36-38) as well as a refusal to isolate agriculture from other sectors, and the here from the there. This internationalist nature central to socialist thought can be linked to its being an inheritor of anticapitalist unions active in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, the notion of solidarity was central to the project of the Confdration in its early days (Lambert, 1970:171-181). In the 1980s and early 1990s, based on Marxist and Third-Worldist ideas en vogue at the time, the idea of solidarity was meant to reflect the shared interests of farmers around the world, based on shared experiences and the idea that other peasants were brothers in arms (Martin, 2004:113-114). Later, the notion of solidarity was enlarged to give rise to the idea that the fate of peasants in the North is indissociable from that of the farmers and starving people in the South (Agrikoliansky et al., 2004:28). Thus, the organisations vision is based on the recognition of the shared nature of experiences of the local for the peasantry worldwide. Such experiences typically revolve around a systemic analysis of oppression and exploitation. Thus, a guest participant from Nigeria at the 2011

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European Nylni Forum explains that We are struggling with the same things, [], same patterns. in reference to the common experience with farmers from Europe (European Nylni forum for food sovereignty, 2012). This idea of shared issues and challenges, but also shared adversaries was an element common to all interviews. Such a vision points to the need for different denominators than geography and regional location to give an accurate picture of small farmers experiences. In other words, the very vision of the Confdration Paysanne challenges the North/South binary. Indeed, if there is an acknowledgement of some differences in the daily experiences of small farmers worldwide, there is recognition of the systemic and for some ideological nature of phenomena such as small-scale farmers disappearance, debt and landlessness. According to members of the organisation, and contrary to the North vs. South narratives that surround the issue of agriculture outlined in section 2.3, at the core of the issue is the productivist model. Thus, focusing the analysis based a North/South-type binary leads to a false conception of what is at stake, or failing to notice the integrated nature of the issue of agriculture. Indeed, while dividing the world into a rich and exploitative West and a poor and exploited Rest has given rise to politically important geographies of development (Cloke and Johnston, 2005:15), the case study of the Confdration Paysanne shows that this binary distinction can and indeed has been challenged so as to recognise more complex interactions. As shown by sections 5.1.1 and 5.1.2, the organisation cannot be considered as strictly local or global. It does not think local or global, and it does not act local or global. Thus it does not think global and act local or think local and act global. Unlike the other unions mentioned in this paper, it is not acting in the sole defence of small farmers, nor is it a global advocacy movement (Collins, Gariyo and Burdon, 2001:136). It is not the people in the North demanding change in the South, but rather it is the recognition of a common issue, not based on a hierarchy of development. The Confdrations vision is rooted in a people paradigm and is based on the concept of solidarity in the sense of the realisation of a common struggle, the unity of small-scale farmers and consumers in aspirations and interests.

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5.2

Pros and cons of acting and thinking in multiple levels

There are pros and cons stemming from the Confdrations stance of thinking and acting at multiple levels. Although it was originally instigated as a French farmers union, the Confdrations wider project and vision requires a focus beyond French or even European politics and boundaries. Thus, working at several levels has forced the organization to articulate and negotiate its identity as a social movement and as a farmers union. As was mentioned previously, this negotiation is one of the main challenges faced by the organisation. Yet, despite problems and accusations for being too much of one and not enough of the other, the organisation insists that both are complementary. Indeed, in recent years, there has been a clear refusal on the part of the Confdration to chose one logic over the other (CP, 2007:119). Thus, Via Campesina, Eurovia and the local ADEARs to use the same examples as previously- are separate entities but work in parallel to one another and all form part of the same global logic. The coherence of the model promoted by the Confdration, its politics and its global logic mean that it can apply everywhere. This, Charleyne Barthomeuf explains links local ADEARs and some global solidarity campaigns she takes part in (interview). One issue that emerged out of the interviews conducted was the complexity of the Confdrations message. Indeed, when comparing the Confdrations line of argument to that of the FNSEA, it appeared that the latters views and aims were clearer, in that the majoritarian union defends the interests of farmers in a more straightforward way, based on a logic of material interests (eg. production). However, due to its global and more integrated logic the Confdration Paysannes message is deemed more difficult to explain and thus spread, particularly amongst farmers (Chatillon, interview). As two interviewees stated, in the French department of the Gers, where the Confdrations electoral scores are low, there are stronger links with and support from non-farmers groups than farmers. A binary logic clearly distinguishing the local from the global would potentially enable the Confdration to appeal to a broader base, notably amongst farmers. However, as stated by Charleyne Barthomeuf, the strength of the Confdration lies in its coherence (interview). Thus, beyond the interests of peasants, the Confdration is concerned with

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those of consumers, through its linking of dual-track agriculture to dual-quality food.8 The issue of junk food (malbouffe) highlighted in the dismantlement of the McDonalds in Millau makes a clear link between producers and consumers in the fight against dominant systems of production and to promote the notion of producing less but better, or in the words of Nettie Wiebe, to promote a Peasant Agriculture that will not only feed the world, but feed it better (European Nylni forum for food sovereignty, 2012). As such, making the link between society and farmers, Jean-Claude Chatillon explains that agriculture is best defended by the whole of society (interview).

5.3

Multi-levelled thinking in action

Using the hegemony framework articulated in the section 2.1, it appears that by putting forth a new idea of space through the interrelation of struggles and a vision beyond North/South and local/global binaries, here in the context of agriculture, the Confdration Paysanne is contributing to the creation of a new politics of space, a new regime of spatial and social imaginaries. Indeed, by rejecting the arbitrary of boundaries for struggle, part of the neoliberal capitalist logic (Harvey, 1982:421-422), the organisation frees itself from the dictatorship of dualism. The concept of the glocal put forth in section 2.2, as the interconnectedness of the local and global levels (Blatter, 2006:358) can help in making sense of the work of the Confdration Paysanne. Indeed, the attempt to see the global and the local in relational terms at the core of Cox and Roberstons arguments resonate with the narrative and work of the Confdration Paysanne. However, the author of this paper believes there are potential dangers associated with the very term glo-cal. Indeed, the case study of the Confdration Paysanne shows that there is a need for more than a two-level or even three-level analysis (Blatter, 2006). As such, a concept encompassing the multi- levelled nature of the Confdrations work would prove a better-suited framework through which to make sense of the organisations vision. Thus, going back to globalisation debates mentioned in section 2.2, in referring to another idiom of space, an alternative articulation of the local and the global, the
8 This linking of productivist agriculture to lower-quality products can be exemplified by the Confdrations struggle against GM crops, or bovine growth hormones (Confdration Paysanne, 2007:11).

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Confdration is part of that third movement, free from the hyperglobalist vs. sceptics debate. The organisations working in a multi-levelled network is in line with the overflowing of binaries. This vision challenges the normativity of boundaries, both geographical and social. As such, going beyond North/South or local/global dualism(s), the Confdration Paysanne is performing a new politics, pointing to new possibles. As argued in the second chapter, resistance as the changing of relations of power can only come through by ascertaining the possibility of alternatives. As the Confdration Paysanne strives to demonstrate that another system of production and consumption is possible, it constitutes a challenge to the hegemony of neoliberal productivist agriculture both in theory and in practice. Using Bourdieus concept of the doxa (1977), one can argue that the Confdrations thinking and actions open up a world of competing possibles, alternative stories about how people might and do organise themselves socially and politically beyond the rigidity of binary frameworks.

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6. Conclusion
Based on a combination of primary and secondary data analysis, this paper has put forward the case of the Confdration Paysanne, a French farmers union, and its particular articulation of the relationship between the North and the South, the local and the global. My personal interest in the topic came out of my own experience of simplification, and failing to consider the diversity in narratives and experiences of agriculture even within the North. Through this case study I chose to open up the narrative. The case study of the Confdration Paysannes vision and work showed that the organisation does not simply think global, and act local or think local, and act global, but rather understands these scales as interconnected. Indeed, the organisations vision revolves around ideas of interconnectedness of people, shared experiences and the need to act at several levels at the same time. The aim of this paper is not to deny the existence of what are often referred to as the North and the South or the local and the global, in that they are not valid analytical tools for exploring other issues. Rather, for the Confdration, the particular framing of the issue of agriculture based on those binaries, proves flawed, thereby limiting potential for action and understanding. Referring to a glocal sphere whereby the local and the global are mutually constituted (Swyngedouw, 1997:137), is more politically complex than the simplification or assumption of isolatedness of experiences. However, it still fails to recognise the multiplicity of levels at which the Confdration engages, and thus it is important to apprehend the organisations endeavour in a more multi-levelled perspective so as to make sense of its working and thinking at different scales. If at times there may be a need for simplification, it should not be associated with the shutting out of alternative narratives and visions. Indeed, the issue of agriculture and its ramifications is a complex one, and what emerges from this research is that simplification such as focusing on a North/South divide to make sense of the complexities involved, only closes down on one dominant narrative. As such, it is important for alternative narratives and competing stories to be heard. The Confdration Paysanne, by challenging the legitimacy of dominant dualist thinking, and by refusing to fall into the local/global and North/South binary participates in the

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broadening of the narrative surrounding agriculture in development. To that extent, Bourdieus idea of competing possibles helps explain the significance of the work and vision of the Confdration Paysanne, which is essentially pointing to the possibility and indeed existence of an alternative to the dominant narrative and practice of agriculture. As a farmers union, the Confdration Paysanne is often expected to focus on defending the interests of farmers in terms of production and profits. Yet, what appeared in the course of the research undertaken for this paper is that the organisations vision goes beyond narrow understanding of interests such as based on a productivist model. Instead, its vision is based on a global logic, with implications at various levels, from the local to the global, thus requiring different strategies. Only by understanding the relationship between the different spaces and scales is it possible to make sense of the Confdrations stance in refusing the hegemony of dominant binaries, which isolate what happens here from what happens there.

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7. Appendices

7.1

List of interviewees
Position/Occupation -Former National Secretary for the Confdration Paysanne -Member of Coordination Committee of Eurovia -Farmer (Cereal, fodder, lavender, poultry) -Local facilitator ADEAR 32 (Gers, France) -Winemaker -Departmental spokesperson for the Confdration Paysanne (Gers, France) -Farmer (cattle) Date of interview Location of interview 16.07.12 Skype

Name Savigny, G.

Barthomeuf, C.

10.08.12

Auch (France)

Chatillon, J.-C.

13.08.12

Loustliges (France)

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