Chapter 1 traces the common ideological grounds that made possible the formation of an alliance in the early 1920s between Reform-minded students in Peru and a number of Christian missionaries and religious pacifists from Europe and the United States. These students, many of whom formed the APRA movement shortly after, viewed in continental solidarity a remedy to the moral crises they sensed around them. For many Christian pacifists, who like the Scottish Reverend John A. Mackay and the US internationalist Anna Melissa Graves feared belligerent forms of nationalism, the references they saw in the Peruvian student reform movement to the Bolivarian ideal of a united America was inspiring. They viewed in these young Latin American radicals an opportunity for spiritual renewal in the Western World. Whereas these groups of historical actors often disagreed on the means to the end, still they agreed on which end to pursue. For all of them, the Americas provided a foil for the wrongs of Western civilization.

Chapter 4 studies the consequences that state repression in 1932–1933 had on the political capacities and on the calls for Latin American solidarity of the Peruvian APRA. It argues that trans-American solidarity buttressed the rise of APRA as a populist movement from the 1930s on. The simultaneous experiences of persecution and exile in the early 1930s on one side, and of political contests to control the rank-and-file of the party on the other, pressed upon the Aprista community, and more specifically upon the Hayista faction within that community, the necessity to cling to a discourse of Latin American solidarity to ensure political survival in Peru. The chapter shows that being connected to the outside world supplied to the Hayista faction two crucial political advantages as it vied for political control of the movement. For one, the APRA leaders who had experienced exile in the 1920s and who were deported in the early 1930s had access to transnational solidarity networks that others in the party lacked. Also, in addition to providing access to external resources, international connections gave the Hayista faction the opportunity to acquire symbolic capital in Peru.

Chapter 2 studies how personal self-transformations in exile triggered the rise of new social and hemispheric consciousnesses among Apristas who were deported abroad in the 1920s. It traces as a case study the rocky relationship that the young student activist and future APRA leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre maintained during his first years in exile with the foreign allies, specifically the Scottish Reverend John A. Mackay and the US internationalist Anna Melissa Graves, who assisted him, and who tried to politically influence him. Transnational solidarity networks, the chapter shows, would herein assist in crucial ways APRA’s early formation as a persecuted political group. But this reliance on foreign assistance came with a price for the movement’s autonomy: it cracked open a space for progressive US allies and Christian missionaries to peddle their own agenda to Latin American critiques of empire.

A contemporary approach in post-apartheid South Africa to shift the structural foundation of racial inequality and redress past injustices is land transfer, though land policies and associated operationalisation have fallen short of triggering the expected socioeconomic gains. Where land has been redistributed, it has neither contributed to the revitalization of smallholder agriculture, nor enhanced the living conditions of recipients. The failure of the land programme to meet official targets and public expectations may be tied to prevalent underutilization of the lands owing to lack of working capital, insufficient support services and unsuitable project design. There are two missing links in the transfer process: first, the lack of sustained focus, timely policy adjustment, resource mobilization and policy operationalization; second, inappropriate strategy to address agrarian dualism. The chapter concludes by suggesting that while land transfer is commendable, recipients should be actively involved in project construction and roll-out, provision of necessary support system to new entrants into the farming sector, continuous extension services to subsistence and commercial farmers, feasible farm planning and partitioning of large farm lands among households.

It seems easy to assert that every human being is entitled to food security. Besides article 11 of the International Covenant on Social and Economic Rights (ICESCR), a plethora of international documents contain authoritative statements to this effect. Yet, the evolution of right to food (RTF) into a justiciable right at the national level has been met with several challenges. Even in cases where this right has been guaranteed in the constitution, one has to admit that there are neither efficient mechanisms to ensure its effective operationalisation nor clear steps to be followed by the state for its fulfilment. In the case of South Africa, the RTF is generally recognised as a fundamental right. Nevertheless, over the last two decades this right has not been translated into a well-defined entitlement with corresponding state responsibility. The chapter concludes by recommending that in light of the prevalent food insecurity at the household and individual levels, it is imperative that (quasi)judicial bodies adopt a creative interpretation of the Constitution and relevant international instruments to hold the state accountable for breaching section 27 of the Constitution and the ICESCR.

Chapter 5 explores the roles of APRA exiles and the workings of APRA’s transnational solidarity networks during the 1930s and early 1940s, a period during which Apristas suffered unremitting state persecution in Peru. It argues that the survival of Peruvian APRA then hinged on its capacity to remain connected to the external world. Communities of APRA exiles stationed abroad connected with non-Latin American allies, especially with past Christian and pacifist allies like Anna Melissa Graves, to create and sustain solidarity networks that worked in favor of the persecuted PAP in Peru. The chapter details the role that communities of exiled Apristas played in sustaining the integrity of their movement in Peru. It also studies the contribution and collaboration of foreign intermediaries and allies of the party and highlights their significance for the cohesion and the political survival of APRA in Peru.

For over five centuries, wage-earners have used food activism to improve their sustenance. This form of mass mobilisation may be perceived as an attempt to reassert previously established entitlement known to be breached, mainly dearth or inflation in food prices. From the 18th century to contemporary times, the poor and working class have used this strategy to call for (re)regulation of food systems, just allocation of resources and policies responsive to their socio-economic needs. But what factors enable such collective action? Put starkly, what theoretical or structural elements incite the lowest rank of citizens to galvanise in the face of dearth or price inflation? While some observers attempt to shedlight on this question, there remains insufficient in-depth assessment of the socio-economic and political factors which underpin such mobilisation. To fill this void, the chapter draws on historical scholarship and emerging perspectives on rural–urban food activism in order to inform on-going debates on policy reform. It concludes by arguing that poverty alone does not incite the poor to mobilise, but rather consciousness of a breach of entitlement caused by exploitation, neoliberalism and racketeering.

The daily struggles of have-nots question the moral and legal obligations of states to ensure their sustenance. Like many in the Global South, India bears the mark of neoliberalism, deep inequality and price-fixing in the open market. In seeking to enforce their rights, citizens often adopt different strategies when dealing with arms of government at the (sub)national levels. India has witnessed group-based action tailored at pressing for improved access to food in the name of rights. Given that many countries in the Global South and North lack vibrant movements around food security, this chapter interrogates dissent in this domain. Emphasis is placed on how to forge and operationalise a campaign for alleviating hunger. For practical illustration, the chapter assesses the evolution of the Right to Food Campaign (RFC) as a blueprint for the food insecure in (South) Africa and beyond on framing food activism. As an informal network of individuals and organisations across (sub)national levels, the RFC continues to advance Indians’ food access. By relying on existing literature and case law, the chapter examines its different spaces of coalition building, mainly on the streets, courts and parliaments.

The search for an alternative and non-Western concept capable of challenging “Hispanic America” or “Latin America” did not culminate in the Indo-American project. APRA’s Indo-América was by the 1940s much more a product of north–south conciliations than of the anti-colonial vindication of Indigenous’ rights in once claimed to represent. Nevertheless, the work of trying to envision the rebirth of the Americas in new ways did contribute to nourishing the ethos of continental unity and Latin American solidarity as a catalyst for opposing oligarchic rule and foreign hegemony. Radical elements from APRA’s continental program passed on to subsequent generations in Latin America. These new generations borrowed from APRA’s anti-imperialism while adding their own visions of social utopias, just as Apristas had inherited from their predecessors dreams of better futures that nestled within the mystique of united geographies.

In the midst of plenty, many South Africans remain famished nd despite abumper summer harvest, millions are still reeling from severe hunger. In similar situations other countires have mobilised themselves into a social movement aimed at pressing for sufficient access to food in the name of rights, but famished South Africans continue to endure their daily struggles in relative anonymity and silence. Moreover, though South Africans are known for constantly using contentious politics such as activism to press home many demands in the area of health care, land and education, these group-based activities have not been extended to food security. This chapter has two objectives: first, to explore this puzzling paradox and second, to provide recommendations on how to overcome the conditions hindering mobilisation around food security. The chapter takes a closer look at the political contestation around basic rights such as the right to health, land and education in order to understand which factors triggered mobilisation around these entitlements. The chapter concludes by drawing inspiration from these movements in order to provide a blueprint on how to launch food activism in South Africa and beyond.

By providing for civil/political rights alongside a plethora of social/economic rights, the 1996 Constitution signified a commitment and a bold statement to making this dream a reality. Yet, to the millions who are still confronted with endemic hunger, the constitutionally guaranteed rights remain a pipedream. This chapter observes that the state’s intervention to address poverty and food insecurity has mainly been through policy actions. Also, the state has enacted a plethora of sectorial legislations which in one way or another are merely related to food production rather than access or distribution. These interventions, even though somewhat well crafted and commendable, have been unable to adequately tackle the issue. Policies have, until recently not only been poorly operationalised and uncoordinated, but also fragmented. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of, or poor, communication between relevant government departments responsible for food security. It is against this backdrop that the chapter seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of these problems and interrogate possible remedies for addressing these burning issues.

Chapter 3 analyzes the discursive use of exile by Apristas following the return to the homeland and the foundation of the Peruvian APRA Party (PAP) in 1930. It argues that APRA leaders who experienced exile in the 1920s used references to their past travels as regimes of authority in Peru. Discourses of deep connection to and knowledge of the Americas assisted in consolidating the political authority of exiled leaders as they began to convert the continental APRA into a national, mass-based party. The experience of exile, the chapter shows, was used rhetorically as an instrument of political power and persuasion. By highlighting the symbolic importance that travel came to occupy in APRA’s political imaginary abroad, this chapter concurrently revises the clash that opposed in 1928 two major APRA leaders, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and Carlos José Mariátegui. It reframes this episode as a prolonged conflict rather than a clear-cut rupture between aprismo and socialism, as usually portrayed by the historiography of the Peruvian left.

After half a century since the entrenchment of the notion of right to food (RTF) in international instruments, it remains elusive to millions of South Africans. This development evolves in the backyard of a country with high per capita income, entrenched constitutional provision safeguarding citizens’ RTF, being a net exporter of agricultural produce, and a comprehensive social security structure. Ironically, most of these citizens reside in townships or locations where residents constantly take to the streets in demand for basic social services and yet, have not pressed for the provision of food. Why is this the case, and how can this trend be reversed? In seeking to respond to these discursive questions, the chapters in this book address cardinal legal and politico-economic aspects of the RTF, by assessing the concepts, polices and institutions which have created the stark contrast or paradox between (persuasive) policies and (poor) practice. Assessing the means by which people access food (either through own production or purchase), the chapters adopt an interdisciplinary approach, spanning agriculture, economics, history, land economy, law, political science, nutrition and sociology, to determine the dynamics of the RTF and poor policy interventions.