In this blog post, Sebastian Reyes-Bejarano, Julio Arias, Lorenza Arango and Jun Borras investigate the role of scholarship in land dispossession, environmental destruction and violence.
Right to left: Minister of Agriculture Martha Carvajalino, Minister of Education Daniel Rojas, Jenniffer Vargas Reina Associate Professor at Universidad Nacional, Yamith Gonzales representative of the agrarian movement Cinturon Occidental Ambiental and Oscar Calvo Isaza Dean of Human Sciences Faculty at Universidad Nacional Sede Medellín.
… activist efforts illuminate our social and political world in ways that scholarship alone never can.
In the academic world, not all research serves the common good. Some scholarship, often backed by powerful institutions, has contributed to land dispossession - transferring land from poor working people to wealthy individuals and corporations. These actions are often justified in the name of ‘economic efficiency’ and ‘growth’, but they result in landlessness, hunger, environmental destruction and violence. Unfortunately, mainstream academia often supports narratives that normalize these injustices.
Yet, there is another tradition in research - one that aligns with social movements and communities working for justice. While different labels may be used to describe them - engaged researchers, activist academics, scholar-activists – they all seek to combine scientific rigor with a commitment to social change. They work side by side with affected communities to advance land rights, agroecology and ecological justice. They understand that knowledge is not neutral and that research must serve a purpose - to challenge inequality, not reinforce it.
An enduring example and inspiration of scholar-activist in this context is the Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda. One of the most powerful recent examples of this kind of work comes from the Medellín workshop.
The Medellin workshop
On April 24–25, 2025, 175 Colombian scholars and researchers – nearly half of them women – from 38 universities across 15 of Colombia’s 32 departments gathered for a landmark workshop at the Universidad de Antioquia and Universidad Nacional in Medellín. They came together to ask: how can academics support the Pact for Land and Life (the ‘Pact’)?
The Pact is 12-point agreement signed in February 2025 by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and social movements in Chicoral, Tolima. It calls for more than traditional agrarian reform. It demands land redistribution, restitution and recognition for campesinos, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples. It envisions a regenerative economy, ecological restoration and stronger democratic representation for marginalized communities by social movements.
At the workshop, participants explored how research and education can support this transformation.
Irene Vélez, professor and director of Colombia’s National Environmental Licensing Authority, emphasized that ‘knowledge must have a purpose.’ She argued that researchers must acknowledge the political role of their work - and use it to challenge inequality.
Jenniffer Vargas Reina, associate professor at Universidad Nacional, called for a deep reshaping of academic practices: aligning research with the Pact’s goals, redesigning university curricula and building long-term engagement between universities and social movements. According to her, ‘academics and researchers have a crucial role to play in consolidating the foundations of agrarian reform established over the past two years [under the Petro government].’
Martha Carvajalino, Colombia’s Minister of Agriculture, underlined the importance of active, collective research that is rooted in dialogue with communities. She urged academics to both teach and learn from grassroots actors - and to document these processes so that Colombia’s redistributive agenda is not lost but built upon for future generations.
A strategic turning point
Workshops like this are not new - in Colombia or elsewhere. But the scale and political momentum behind the Medellín workshop is truly extraordinary. It represents the start of a more systematic process: building a national movement of engaged researchers that can actively accompany social movements and reform-oriented public officials.
Participants declared in their manifesto that the construction of knowledge should be a tool for transformation, not for legitimizing oppression. They pledged to support agrarian reform that secures rights, restores land, compensates victims of rural violence, and promotes food sovereignty and ecological care.
This work is not without risks. In Colombia’s past, academics who challenged agrarian injustices - like Hernán Henao, Jesús Antonio Bejarano, Elsa Alvarado, and Mario Calderón - were assassinated. But the current political context has opened safer spaces for organizing, and the scholars at Medellín recognized the historic significance of this moment. Workshop particpants emphasized the strategic significance of the political conjuncture: 'This is a crucial historical moment, and academia must assume its responsibility with courage and commitment.'
From individual efforts to a collective force
Historically, scholar-activists have often worked in isolation. But participants in Medellín emphasized the need to build a movement, not just a network of individuals. This was also a core message in the founding manifesto of the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists in the South (CASAS).
They highlighted that multiple forms of knowledge - academic, peasant, Indigenous, bureaucratic - exist side by side, but often fail to interact. When they do connect on equal terms, their power multiplies. That interaction must be horizontal: not ranked, but respectful of difference and guided by shared goals.
French farmer and global coordinator of La Via Campesina, Morgan Ody, reinforced this point. She noted how ruling elites have long devalued the knowledge of working people, portraying them as inferior. 'One of our key values as social movements is the equal dignity of all human beings', she said. 'We must also challenge the knowledge hierarchy - and put peasant, Indigenous, women’s and academic knowledge on an equal footing.'
Looking ahead
The workshop closed on a hopeful and determined note. Participants plan to expand the network of scholar-activists, strengthen alliances with social movements and public institutions, and push forward initiatives that support the democratization of land politics in Colombia.
This process is just beginning - but it marks a critical shift in how knowledge, power, and justice can be aligned for collective good.
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Acknowledgements
The workshop received organizational, intellectual, political and logistical support from the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Planning Department, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Universidad Nacional Sede Medellín, Universidad de Antioquia, and the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. At ISS/EUR, this work is part of the Democratizing Knowledge Politics initiative under the Erasmus Professors programme for positive societal engagement.
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