"Rural movements have recently emerged to become some of the most important social forces in opposition to neoliberalism. From Brazil and Mexico to Zimbabwe and the Philippines, rural movements of diverse political character, but all sharing the same social basis of dispossessed peasants and unemployed workers, have used land occupations and other tactics to confront the neoliberal state. This book brings together for the first time across three continents - Africa, Latin America and Asia - an intellectually consistent set of original investigations into this new generation of rural social movements." "These country studies seek to identify their social composition, strategies, tactics, and ideologies: to assess their relations with other social actors, including political parties, urban social movements, and international aid agencies and other institutions: and to examine their most common tactic, the land occupation, its origins, pace and patterns, as well as the responses of governments and landowners."--BOOK JACKET