Territories in Dispute: Financialization, Resistance and Peasant Sovereignty in the Andean Region : Financiarización y Resistencia Campesina en la Región Andina

Yesid Alexander Garces Pulido, ; Ivan Alveiro Quintero Castaño, ; Adriana Carolina Guevara Rincón,

Synopsis

Territories in Dispute: Financialization, Resistance, and Peasant Sovereignty in the Andean Region is a work that delves into the complexity of contemporary rural dynamics, exploring the intersections between financialization, territorial dispossession, and peasant resistance. Combining rigorous conceptual analysis with specific case studies, this book is an essential contribution for those seeking to understand the processes of territorial transformation in Latin America and the crucial role of peasants in defending their lands and ways of life.

Chapter 1: Territory, Subjectivity, and Epistemic Justice: Toward an Ontological Peasant Resistance in Latin America

This first chapter establishes the theoretical framework of the book, exploring the concept of epistemic justice and how peasant communities resist not only materially, but also epistemologically and ontologically. The author explores peasant subjectivities as a field of struggle, where the extractivist logics of capital clash with peasant ways of life based on reciprocity, autonomy, and food sovereignty. This approach paves the way for subsequent chapters by highlighting that the struggle for territory is also a struggle for the preservation and recognition of local knowledge and ways of life that challenge global capitalism.

Chapter 2: Socio-environmental Transformations and Territorial Resistance in the Andean Region of Tolima: Land Use and Conflicts over Land Use

In this chapter, the author delves into the environmental and territorial changes in the Andean region of Tolima, highlighting how tensions between agricultural expansion and ecosystem conservation have redefined the rural landscape. Local communities have faced increasing pressure from agribusiness, monoculture, and extractive policies, but have resisted by implementing agroecological practices and building autonomous territories. This analysis is framed within the concept of decolonial political ecology, offering a comprehensive understanding of land conflicts from a critical perspective.

 

Chapter 3: Agrarian Transformations and Territorial Challenges in Northern Tolima: Land Accumulation, Cadastral Valuations, and Resistance

This chapter explores how agrarian transformations, driven by land revaluation and accumulation processes, have affected rural communities in northern Tolima. The author analyzes the implications of cadastral appraisals and agrarian policies on the concentration of land in the hands of large capital, while detailing the strategies of resistance that have emerged to confront this process of dispossession. Here, the importance of peasant agrifood territories and Peasant Reserve Zones as forms of collective organization that seek to preserve territorial autonomy is highlighted.

Chapter 4: Rural Economies and the Debt Trap: Financialization and Dispossession of Peasants

The fourth chapter delves into the financialization of rural economies, examining how peasants are trapped in a cycle of indebtedness that subordinates them to the logic of financial capital. Through critical analysis, it shows how microfinance, presented as a solution to rural poverty, has become a trap that perpetuates dispossession and precariousness. Financialization not only impacts productive practices, but also profoundly transforms peasant subjectivities, aligning them with the values of the global market.

Chapter 5: Impact of Microfinance on Rural Development: A Case Study in the Village of El Convenio, Northern Tolima

The case study presented in this chapter offers an empirical look at the effects of microfinance on a specific rural community in Tolima. Through this analysis, the author illustrates how microcredit policies have affected farmers in terms of indebtedness and dependency, eroding their ability to maintain an economy based on self-sufficiency. The relationship between debt and peasant subjectivity is explored, showing how communities face structural challenges that transform their relationship with the land and their future.

Conclusions: Strategies of Resistance and the Future of Rural Peasantry

The book concludes by integrating the ideas presented in the previous chapters, emphasizing that peasant resistance is not only a reaction to material dispossession, but a comprehensive struggle that involves epistemological, territorial, and economic dimensions. Peasant communities continue to defend their right to land and to ways of life based on agroecology and food sovereignty, challenging capitalist logics that seek to commodify their territories and knowledge. The author argues that the future of the peasantry depends on its ability to build and strengthen networks of solidarity and resistance that transcend geographical and political boundaries.

Keywords: Accumulation by dispossession, Endogenous development, Rural financialization, Peasant Reserve Zones, Agroecology, Food sovereignty, Rural microfinance, Peasant resistance

Chapters

  • Territorio, subjetividad y justicia epistémica : hacia una resistencia ontológica campesina en América Latina
  • Economías rurales y la trampa de la deuda : financiarización y despojo del campesinado
  • Transformaciones socioambientales y resistencia territorial en la región andina del Tolima : vocación del suelo y conflictos por el uso del territorio
  • Transformaciones agrarias y desafíos territoriales en el Norte del Tolima
  • De la trampa de la deuda a la soberanía material : los TECAM como horizonte político y praxis de resistencia en el norte del Tolima
La Lucha por la Tierra

How to Cite

Garces Pulido, Y. A., Quintero Castaño, I. A., & Guevara Rincón, A. C. (2026). Territories in Dispute: Financialization, Resistance and Peasant Sovereignty in the Andean Region: Financiarización y Resistencia Campesina en la Región Andina. Sello Editorial UNAD. https://doi.org/10.22490/UNAD.

Categories Research Book

Published

October 7, 2026