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AbstractAcross plantation communities in the Philippines, farm workers are locked in struggles about their entitlement to land. Who may qualify as 'rightful beneficiaries' in the current government programme of land redistribution has become a deeply contentious issue. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 has produced — besides landowner resistance — an extensive renegotiation of land rights at the community level that may set landless workers against one another. This paper explores, for the sugarcane plantation region of Negros Occidental, why these intra-poor conflicts take place and how the boundaries between competing groups are drawn. Central to the analysis are: (1) a multi-actor perspective that considers the interactions of farm workers with state agencies, landowners, farm worker movements, NGOs, and different categories of the landless poor; and (2) a focus on the multiple social fields in which farm workers are involved (the fields of the state, market, social movements, landowner patronage, and the plantation community, among others), each with a defining social tie and legitimising discourse, each prompting a specific type of claim and justifying argument.

All forms of popular protest include a specific category of 'popular intellectuals', who reflect on social reality, speak in the name of popular classes and who articulate ideas that inspire collective action. This volume focuses on these individuals from an original angle: it looks at the experiences of popular intellectuals in non-western societies, who operate within social-movement networks that link local, regional, and international arenas, and connect to a global flow of ideas. Eight case studies on different societies in twentieth-century Asia, Africa, and Latin America highlight specific activist intellectuals and their role in collective action. They cover a wide terrain, including framing contests among Muslim activists and cultural brokerage in an ecological movement. The collection provides fresh insights into the cultural dynamics of social contention and widens the geographic scope of current debates on this theme