This presentation will examine the struggles of Caribbean peasants for land and livelihoods during the agrarian reform years, focusing on the experiences of peasant women and children. It will argue that centering these perspectives reveals two important aspects of Caribbean peasant mobilization for agrarian reform during that time. First, the fact that the social reproduction work of peasant women and children was vital for sustaining the prolonged resistance against the expansion of large estates in the region. Second, the perspective of these social actors helps us understand the struggle for land as a fight for more than just property. For them, beyond property, land was seen as a communal resource essential for creating a homeplace for peasant communities. This presentation highlights how Caribbean peasant women and children challenged the agrarian reform's views of land as merely quantifiable property. It will argue that, for these social actors, land was conceptualized as a space of contention and care that made life possible on an everyday basis.
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