The essays in this collection examine agrarian transformation in Latin America and the role in this of peasants, with particular reference to Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Central America.

The essays in this collection examine agrarian transformation in Latin America and the role in this of peasants, with particular reference to Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Central America. Among the issues covered are the impact of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies on peasant economy and rural labour, the historical and contemporary nature of peasant/state relations, debates over Amazonian peasantries, forms taken by local/regional/national peasant ideology/agency, and political disputes over agrarian reform. Land still remains on the agenda of most Latin American peasants, who continue to be politically active, not just in Chiapas (Mexico), nor in ways stipulated by post-modern, post-colonial and post-development theory.

Latin American peasants - new paradigms for old?, Tom Brass
the peasantry and the state in Latin America - a troubled past, an uncertain future, James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer

from rubber estate to simple commodity production - agrarian stuggles in the Northern Bolivian Amazon, Willem Assies
the impact of neo-liberal economics on Peruvian peasant agriculture in the 1990s, John Crabtree
whither "O Campesinato"?
historical peasantries of Brazilian Amazonia, Stephen Nugent
from dependency to reform and back again - the Chilean peasantry during the twentieth century, Warwick E. Murray
globalization and the reinvention of Andean tradition - the politics of community and ethnicity in highland Bolivia, John McNeish
devil pact narratives in rural Central America - class, gender and "resistance", Kees Jansen and Esther Roquas
representing the peasantry? struggles for/about land in Brazil, Jose de Souza Martins
on which side of what barricade? subaltern resistance in Latin America and elsewhere, Tom Brass.