The neo‐peasant movement in Catalonia: An attempt at defining it in the light of the infrapolitical strategies of resistance

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses everyday forms of resistance of the neo‐peasants in Catalonia against the dominant legal and economic system. For the purpose of the analysis, neo‐peasants are defined as social movement whose actors share the same values reflected in the neo‐peasant identity and try to put into practice a peasant lifestyle and a peasant economy based on agriculture and animal breeding. This article is based on the analysis of the ethnography of 26 initiatives that was carried out between 2016 and 2020. It examines the neo‐peasant lifestyle as a form of infrapolitics–neo‐peasants’ ‘a‐legal’ practices, such as pig slaughter or voluntary insolvency. These neo‐peasant resistance strategies are the forms of coping with the current legal and economic context. We propose that infrapolitics is a mode of action that can be used to redefine what is considered a legitimate political space and to build new spaces in which political agonism can be manifested. Moreover, we argue that because of this particular function of neo‐peasant infrapolitics, they can be analysed using the New Social Movements theory or a concept of the ‘hope movement’.