ABSTRACT
Recent debates on the expansion of palm oil in Colombia commonly link this process to the violent dispossession of local communities, environmental degradation, the destruction of rural livelihoods and resistance. However, in this chapter I re-examine the presumption that oil palm is incompatible with rural livelihoods and generates resistance. In Colombia’s Middle Magdalena valley, the expansion of oil palm has been associated with projects that have placated rural mobilization by integrating peasants into global commodity chains. In this case study, both paramilitary terror, alongside new processes of differentiation amongst peasants have undermined the bonds of solidarity and traditions of radicalism that had characterized this marginal rural region. By exploring the various political interventions, terms of inclusion and political responses surrounding palm oil expansion, this chapter examines how the adaptive strategies of rural communities to agro-industrial development can undermine the organizational efforts of resistance movements.
