On Just Grounds: Struggling for agrarian justice and citizenship rights in the rural Philippines

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If agrarian justice has been primarily about land, it has necessarily also been about political democracy and democratic state-building. By problematizing rural democratization processes, this book tries to show how conventional portrayals of rural poor people's collective action not only falls far short of reality, but also obscures an important trend in Philippine rural politics and society. Rural poor people's mobilizations 'from below' are increasingly an integral part of the strategic battle over the current boundaries of democratization system-wide. Instead of dismissing them a priori, the authors have tried to emphasize those who collectively seek redress from intolerable and unjust situations by invoking, using, and attempting to stretch the limits of 'official values' as embedded in state law. This book describes and analyzes contemporary local developments in the rural social movement field in the Philippines. It aims to help bring to light any new articulations of 'difference and possibility' that may be unfolding there and from there.