Cultivating Socialism: Venezuela, ALBA, and the Politics of Food Sovereignty

Launched in 2004, the Latin American regional institution of ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América: Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) sought to overcome the historical legacies of neocolonial domination by consecrating the values of cooperation, inclusive development, and popular power. As part of a region-wide effort among states and social movements to break out of the the destructive effects of capitalist agriculture, the elevation of food sovereignty--based on the protection of rural livelihoods, land redistribution, and sustainable agricultural production (agroecology)--became a cornerstone of ALBA’s development policy. And yet, these regional aspirations barely saw the light of day, while Venezuela (the beating heart of ALBA) experienced the worst food crisis in its history. How did this come to pass? Based on extensive fieldwork in Venezuela, where the majority of ALBA’s food policies reside, Cultivating Socialism provides the first in-depth study of the ways in which peasants, workers, and states working through ALBA attempted to redress the inequities of commercial agriculture and the limits and contradictions encountered on the road to a regional food sovereignty regime. With his analysis of the politics of food sovereignty within ALBA, Rowan Lubbock offers important lessons about how we might think about emancipatory politics today and in the future.