Agrarian and Rural Movements : Changing Dynamics and New Alliances

In the wake of persisting expansion of economic neoliberalism, Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs), politics of populism, arousal of aspirational communities and new shades of welfareism of the state on the one hand and increasing phenomenon of unemployment, migration and livelihood insecurity of large segments of rural and agrarian population on the other there have been phenomenal shifts in the dynamics of rural and agrarian movements especially in the developing parts of the world. The traditional collective mobilizations those were predominantly founded on the issues of poverty and inequality are now accompanied by the issues of environmental sustainability, education and skill development , sustainable development, human rights, ethnicity, culture and nationalism. The localized issues are not getting increasingly interconnected with the issues of the wider society so are the collective mobilizations. Consequently rural and agrarian movements are now becoming parts of environmental, human rights, anti-globalization, caste, ethic and nationalist and cultural movements. The traditional modes of mobilizations are now widely supplemented by new modes of mobilization with the usage of social media and ICTs As against these backdrops this session aims to debate on the new and emerging forms of collective mobilizations in the rural and agrarian societies in the form of the peasant, farmers, environmentalist, caste, ethnic, women's movements and their intersectionality in terms of collective mobilization, articulation of issues, leadership, ideological and organizational affiliations and alliances