“Sowing hope, harvesting country” the agricultural, rural, ethnic and popular minga in Colombia (2016)

Abstract

The article analyses the origin and development of the Agrarian, Rural, Ethnic and Popular Minga of 2016, using the categories of the classic agenda for the study of social movements. The peasants indignation for the breach of the Government with the agreements previously acquired, resulted in a large protest due to the political opportunities provided by the public agenda extension in the framework of the peace process in Havana. However, these opportunities do not would have profited if not existed a unitary organizational process in Agrarian Summit, which has been linked to major organizations of the peasant movement and has created frameworks for collective action that articulated several social and political actors. For this analysis, the article was structured in four parts: the first reconstructs the political contest that the Minga is framed; in the following three, political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and collective action frames are respectively examined. It can be concluded that beyond get willingness to dialogue and the ratification of the commitments by the Government, the protest was the result as consequence the consolidation of a rural social movement that articulates the different expressions of life in the Colombian countryside, different cultures, and diverse forms of production.