Wolford, Wendy W.

My work draws upon and contributes to political economies of development, social movements and resistance, agrarian societies, political ecology, land use, land reform, and critical ethnography, all with a regional concentration in Latin America, particularly Brazil. For over fifteen years, I have worked with one of the most exciting and important grassroots social movements in Latin American history, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (the Movement of Rural Landless Workers, or the MST). From my work with the movement, I have developed the following projects: 1) an analysis of the historical relationships between land and labor that shape movement formation and maintenance in two distinct regions of Brazil: the relatively more developed South and the impoverished sugarcane region of the Northeast; 2) an ethnographic analysis of institutional culture, governance and land distribution in Brazil with a focus on the ways in which the politics of nostalgia, regret, solidarity and opposition shape the speed, nature and feasibility of land reform; 3) a critical evaluation of "participatory democracy " in the increasing articulations between the state and social movements in Latin America; and 4) an analysis of the shifting paradigms of farmer-led conservation and development in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. For more information, please see: Wendy Wolford`s Research Projects and Information.

academic article
- Governing Global Land Deals: The Role of the State in the Rush for land. Development and Change. 44:189-210. 2013
- Making a Difference: Sebastião Salgado and the Social Life of Mobilization. Sociological Forum. 26:444-450. 2011
chapter
- Development II. Companion to Human Geography. 575-588. 2011
- Land Reform and Landless Movements. Compendium of the International Studies Assocation. 2011

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