Biography
Saturnino ('Jun') M. Borras Jr. is Professor of Agrarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, and was the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Peasant Studies for 15 years, until early 2023. He is part of the distinguished Erasmus Professor Program for Societal Impact, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a recipient of the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for his ongoing research project, "Commodity & land rushes: reshaping five spheres of global social life - food, climate change politics, labour/migration, state/citizenship, and geopolitics" in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He is also a Distinguished Professor at China Agricultural University, Beijing, and an associate at the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI). He was Canada Research Chair (T2) in International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University in Canada in 2007-2010.
His publications include books, journal special issues, and articles. His Open Access books include Political Dynamics of Transnational Agrarian Movements (with M. Edelman), Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World (co-edited with I. Scoones et al.), Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies (co-edited with I. Scoones et al.). His latest monograph (co-authored with J. C. Franco) is Scholar-Activism and Land Struggles, published in 2023. He is co-editor (with J.C. Franco) of The Oxford Handbook of Land Politics for release in late 2024. He is currently working on two monographs (both with J.C. Franco) Essential Concepts of Land Politics (Routledge) and Agrarian Climate Justice (Cambridge University Press). He is co-guest editor of the forthcoming Special Issue of Agriculture and Human Values: "Migrants, Farmers and Farmworkers: The politics of land and labour, production and social reproduction".
His research interests include: land politics/land rush, (trans)national agrarian movements (TAMs); migrant farmworkers, climate change politics; food politics/food sovereignty; BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and global agrarian transformations. His geographic areas of research interest are: Southeast Asia, China, Africa, and South America. He also studies international institutional 'spaces' of state- society interactions, including the role of global governance institutions.
He works within the tradition of, and at the same time studies and writes about, scholar-activism. This has been influenced by his background: He has been deeply involved in rural social movements since the early 1980s in the Philippines, and later, internationally. He was a member of the international agrarian movement La Via Campesina's International Coordinating Committee (ICC) in 1993-1996. He has engaged, selectively, with international inter-governmental institutions on specific issues: a member of UN FAO's High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, lead-author of a European Parliament-commissioned study on EU registered corporations engaged in international land deals, and took the lead in synthesizing the FAO studies in 17 countries of the global land rush as it unfolded in Latin America and the Caribbean, among others.
He is in the Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers List for six consecutive years, 2018-2023. He has received the Ester Boserup Prize for Research on Development (2020), the Interpreting and Changing the World Award: The COHD Prize (China Agricultural University, Beijing, 2023), and is a winner of the National Book Award 2009 in the Philippines. He is a co-editor of the ICAS small book series in critical agrarian studies, all of the available titles in it are now Open Access and available in multiple language editions, co-coordinates the Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies (ICAS), Land Deal Politics Initiatives (LDPI), Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiatives (ERPI), and BRICS Initiatves in Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS). He collaborates with the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists in the South (CASAS) on a number of training initiatives, especially the Annual Writeshop in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism, and with the Transnational Institute (TNI) for its Activist Course for Activists (in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism) running regularly in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa regions.
He serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Agrarian Change, Third World Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Journal of World-Systems Research, Journal of Russian Peasant Studies, Alternatives Sud, and Cambridge University Press Elements Book Series (Global Development Studies)
More information
Work
- Yunan Xu & Jun Borras (2024) - China and Global Land Use Change - doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618646.013.49
- Wendy W. Wolford, Ben White, Ian Scoones, Ruth Hall, Marc Edelman & Saturnino M. Borras (2024) - Global land deals: what has been done, what has changed, and what's next? - Journal of Peasant Studies - doi: 10.1080/03066150.2024.2325685 - [link]
- Jun Borras & Jennifer C. Franco (2024) - Land rush - Journal of Peasant Studies, 1-16 - doi: 10.1080/03066150.2024.2317961 - [link]
- Saturnino M. Borras jr., Lorenza Arango, Moges Belay, Jennifer C. Franco, Sai Sam Kham, Tsegaye Moreda, Doi Ra, Itayosara Rojas, Chunyu Wang, Jingzhong Ye & Yunan Xu (2024) - Death of agrarian societies by a thousand cuts: ‘Pin prick’ land grabs and the land rush - [link]
- Wendy Wolford, Ben White, Ian Scoones, Ruth Hall, M Edelman & Jun Borras (2024) - Global land deals: What has been done, what has changed, and what’s next?
- J Franco & Jun Borras (2024) - Land struggles and working people - [link]
- Jun Borras, Ian Scoones, Amita Baviskar, Ruth Hall, M Edelman & Wendy Wolford (2023) - Climate Change and Agrarian Struggles - [link]
- Jun Borras, Ian Scoones, M Edelman, Ruth Hall, Amita Baviskar & Wendy Wolford (2023) - Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies - [link]
- Jun Borras & Marc Edelman (2023) - Le dinamiche politiche dei movimenti agrari transnazionali (Political Dynamics of Transnational Agrarian Movements) (Italian Edition) - [link]
- Jun Borras (2023) - Contemporary agrarian, rural and rural–urban movements and alliances - Journal of Agrarian Change, 23 (3), 453-476 - doi: 10.1111/joac.12549 - [link]
- B Cousins, Jun Borras, S Sauer & J Ye (2018) - Globalizations (Journal)
- Tsegaye Moreda Shegro, Jun Borras, Alberto Alonso Fradejas & Z Brent (2018) - Third World Quarterly (Journal)
- E Corbera, C (Carol) Hunsberger, C Vaddanaphuti & Jun Borras (2017) - Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement (Journal)
- Jun Borras (2015) - Canadian Journal of Development Studies (Journal)
- M Edelman, JC Scott, A Baviskar, Jun Borras, D Kandiyoti, E Holt-Gimenez, T Weis & W Wolford (2014) - Journal of Peasant Studies (Journal)
- M Edelman, C Oya & Jun Borras (2013) - Third World Quarterly (Journal)
- Jun Borras, Cris Kay, S Gomez & J Wilkinson (2012) - Canadian Journal of Development Studies (Journal)
- Chunyu Wang, Jun Borras & C (Carol) Hunsberger (2012) - Paper for the University of Cape Town, South Africa, SANPAD Project Workshop
- Jun Borras, JC Franco, C (Carol) Hunsberger & Chunyu Wang (2012) - Paper presented at the ‘Global Land Grabbing Conference II
- Jun Borras (2023) - Interpreting & Changing the World Award: The COHD Prize
- Jun Borras (2022) - Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher 2022
- Jun Borras (2021) - Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher
- Jun Borras (2020) - Ester Boserup Prize for Research on Development
- Jun Borras (2020) - Web of Science Highly Cited Research
- Jun Borras (2019) - Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher
- Jun Borras (2018) - Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher
- Jun Borras (2009) - National Book Award 2009 -- Social Sciences (Philippines)
China Agricultural University
- Start date approval
- December 2022
- End date approval
- June 2025
- Place
- BEIJING
- Description
- (honorary) Distinguished Professor
2101 The Making of Development
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-2101-24-25
Major AFES
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-AFES-24-25
Board of Examiners
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-BOE-24-25
General Information
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISSGENERAL-24-25
3105 Research Paper Preparation
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-3105-24-25
4150 Political Economy
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-4150-24-25
4240 Agrarian and Food Politics
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-4240-24-25
5401 Research Paper
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-5401-24-25