ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a reflection on the meanings of social movements and follows this with a discussion of what it might mean to place the word rural in front of this term. It discusses the historical nature and role of rural social movements in the region, and reflects on some contemporary movement processes in the Latin American countryside. The chapter draws out broader observations on “Conflicts over the countryside.” It conveys the idea that there are many conflicts spread across Latin American countrysides, that these are conflicts over what that countryside should be for, who it should be for, and what its future should be, and that these conflicts are not just rural in nature but instead about country in the fullest sense of the term.
