Local peasant trade in suspense: a theoretical look from the collective action of the peasants producing onions in the northern department of Santander.

Abstract

For a decade, the producers of Ocañera red onions in the department of Norte de Santander have been subjected to market forces that they cannot counteract, such as the importation of Ecuadorian or Peruvian red onions, and the irregular entry (smuggled) of onions. red from Peru This has led peasant farmers to take collective action to try to stop this phenomenon. The purpose of this document is to carry out a qualitative analysis of this unorganized collective action carried out by the peasants; a semi-structured interview applied to onion producers was used as a primary information collection instrument. The results are presented in 4 sections: a) general aspects of collective action in market, cost and financial terms, b) objectives, purposes and internal dynamics of collective action (CA), c) adversary of collective action (CA), observers, actors and relationships, d) identity, practices of domination and resistance, strategies of persistence and dynamics of change in collective action. At the end, the conclusions and discussion oriented to the analysis of the repertoires, the hegemony-counter-hegemony-anti-hegemony, the identity, the territory and the internal dissents of the collective action are presented.