ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies what is meant by the 'character' of poverty and what this may imply for a critical research agenda. It asks whether the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP) can be viewed as a successful example of a counter or double move arid also, whether the CARP in any way functions as part of a war of position in the rural Philippines. Entrenched local structures and the pervasive forms of international agrarian economics merge to form a hegemony which the CARP must counter in order in order to facilitate the agrarian war of position. The relationships between Philippine society, the state and the church, and the nature of democracy in the Philippines and how 'community' or kinship networks evolve given varying levels of economic development will be central to our analysis. Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony including the way that society is stratified and controlled 'provides a deeper understanding of the formation and nature of counter-movements.
