prof.dr. (Jun) SM Borras

Profile

Saturnino ('Jun') M. Borras Jr. is a Professor of Agrarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague and Editor-In-Chief of the [Journal of Peasant Studies][Journal of Peasant Studies]. He is a recipient of the [European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant][European Research Council ERC Advanced Grant] for his ongoing research project, ["commodity & land rushes][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 an Adjunct Professor at the College of Humanities and Development Studies ([COHD][]) in China Agricultural University, Beijing, Fellow of the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute ([TNI][]), and Belgium-based Centre Tricontinental/[CETRI][].

He has several academic and non-academic [publications][]: books, journal special issues and articles. His most recent books are: (1) in Japanese -- ISBN978-4-7503-4745-5 ?????????/ ??????????Jr. ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????2018??199??([Political Dynamics of Transnational Agrarian Movements][]) (2018, with Marc Edelman), (2) In Spanish:  Movimientos agrarios transnacionales: historia, organizacion y politicas de lucha (Political Dynamics of Transnational Agrarian Movements) (2018, Barcelona: ICARIA, with Marc Edelman); and (3) BRICS and MICs: Implications for Global Agrarian Transformation (2018, Routledge, with B. Cousins, S. Sauer and Y. Jingzhong as co-editors); (4) Converging social justice issues and movements (2020, with Moreda et al, editors). 

His thematic areas of work include: land politics (including contemporary 'global resource rush'); (trans)national agrarian movements (TAMs); migrant farmworkers especially in China, Myanmar and Vietnam; resource conflict; climate change politics; food politics; geopolitics, BRICS/MICs and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and global agrarian transformations; state/citizenship, [rightwing populism][] and the rural world. 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 has continuing research interest in and efforts at further developing the concepts of ‘[flex crops][]’, ‘[land sovereignty][]’, ‘[agrarian climate justice][]’, ‘land grabs that never were’, 'petty reformism and struggles for deep transformative social reforms around recognition, restitution, redistribution and regeneration,' 'land pillar of food sovereignty', interconnection between climate change politics and resource grabbing (esp. the subtle links between [climate change politics and land grabs][]), converging social justice issues and movements (agrarian, environmental, climate, labour justice), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and agrarian transformations.

He works within the tradition of, and at the same time studies and writes about, [scholar-activism][]. This has been influenced by his professional background: He has been deeply involved in rural social movements since the early 1980s in the Philippines, and later, internationally. He was a founding member of the international peasant and farmer's movement La Via Campesina (LVC), and was a member of LVC's International Coordinating Committee (ICC) in 1993-1996. He has engaged, selectively, with international inter-governmental institutions on specific issues. He was, for example, a member of the FAO High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE)  team that prepared a [report][] on global land investments; collaborated with FAO (Latin America and the Caribbean) in their earlier study on land grabbing in 17 countries in the region; and led a [study][] commissioned by the European Parliament on land grabbing and human rights.

He has helped establish a global network of academics and social movem