A Rhetorical Analysis of the Campesinos Sin Tierra Struggle for Land Reform in Paraguay by John Robert Gillette B.A., New College, 1992 M.A., New Mexico State University, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Pittsburgh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Communication University of Pittsburgh 2004 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by John Robert Gillette It was defended on October 1, 2004 and approved by Peter Simonson Carol Stabile Silvia Borzutzky Gordon Mitchell Dissertation Director ii A Rhetorical Analysis of the Campesinos Sin Tierra Struggle for Land Reform in Paraguay John Robert Gillette, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2004 This dissertation analyzes the rhetorical situation of the peasant-driven land reform struggle in the country of Paraguay. While the term “Campesinos Sin Tierra” unites the many different groups participating in the struggle, this work specifically identifies the character of many peasant organizations at local and national levels of participation as well as exploring the attitudes and contributions of individual peasants. The struggle is situated within both historical and rhetorical contexts. The historical importance of land tenure practices is recognized and traced from pre-Columbian civilization to the present. The concept of land as a socio-political instrument as well as an economic resource is explored and related to the present politics of land reform. In addition, the nature of peasant organization, protest strategies, argumentation and success are thoroughly investigated and elucidated in this work. Through on-site research, interviews and translation of newspaper accounts and academic students of Paraguayan peasants, the dissertation develops a thick description of peasant perspectives in the struggle. Particular attention is devoted to unearthing argument strategies and the specific language employed by individual peasant protestors, peasant organizations and other groups. An analysis of these argument strategies constitutes the basis for evaluating the struggle as a new social movement in the context of social movement theory. Finally, the dissertation proposes that “rhetoripolitical” practices structure and constrain the argumentative and iii protest strategies employed in the struggle and serve to explain its failure as a new social movement. Rhetoripolitics functions as a hegemonic process of argumentative cooptation that both limits protest innovation and safeguards the social order from social protest activity. Rhetoripolitics is discussed as a historical and cultural phenomenon situated within the cultural milieu of Paraguay and the Paraguayan land reform struggle. The dissertation concludes by suggesting that rhetoripolitics could structure the nature of social struggles in other developing nations and place constraints upon the nature of social protest as it has in the Paraguayan case. Rhetoripolitics may function as an important limit to the ability of nations in the developing world to participate in the new social movement phenomenon. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Paraguay and the Land Reform Struggle..................................................................................... 1 1.1. Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Project Overview ............................................................................................................ 8 1.3. The Nature of Social Struggles in Paraguay................................................................. 12 1.4. Social Movement Theory.............................................................................................. 15 1.5. The Terrain of Struggle................................................................................................. 32 1.6. Land, Peasant Culture, and Resistance ......................................................................... 36 1.7. Thesis Questions/Method of Study............................................................................... 40 1.7.1. Questions about the Paraguayan land reform struggle ......................................... 41 1.7.2. Critical Method ..................................................................................................... 42 1.7.3. Chapter Organization............................................................................................ 45 II. The History of the Land Struggle in Paraguay......................................................................... 49 2.1 Today’s Collective Struggles........................................................................................ 49 2.2 The Native/Colonial Epoch (1535-1811).............................................................. 61 2.3 The Statist Epoch (1811-1869) ............................................................................. 67 2.4 The Neo-Colonial Epoch (1870-1954) ................................................................. 72 2.5 The Postcolonial Epoch (1954-1989) ................................................................... 90 2.6 The Epoch of Struggle (1982-present).................................................................. 96 III. Peasant Protest Activity and the Complex Character of Land Reform Argumentation ....... 127 3.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 127 3.2 The Evolution of Argument Themes .......................................................................... 130 3.3 Actors and Sites of Argument..................................................................................... 148 3.3.1 International Actors ............................................................................................ 154 3.3.2 National Actors ................................................................................................... 164 3.3.3 Grassroots Actors................................................................................................ 172 3.4 Shifting Sites of Protest Activity ................................................................................ 190 3.5 The Rhetorical Ontology of the Struggle.................................................................... 194 3.6 The Role of Counter-argumentation ........................................................................... 206 3.6.1 Government Counter-arguments and Peasant Response .................................... 206 3.6.2 Police Repression and the Rhetorical Valence of Physical Protest .................... 214 IV. Success or Mere Struggle?.................................................................................................... 224 4.1 Institutional Successes in the Struggle........................................................................ 233 4.2 More Land = Hollow Victory? .................................................................................... 242 4.2.1 Government Support........................................................................................... 253 4.2.2 Cash crop farming............................................................................................... 254 4.2.3 Past success......................................................................................................... 255 4.2.4 A Spirit of Independence. ................................................................................... 257 4.3 Land and Land Reform, the Wrong Goal?.......................................................... 262 4.4 Revisiting Critera for Protest Success................................................................. 265 V. Peasants, New Social Movements and Rhetoripolitics......................................................... 270 5.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 270 5.2 Conditions of the Struggle .......................................................................................... 272 v 5.3 Obstacles to Peasant Self-representation .................................................................... 285 5.4 Is the Paraguayan Land Reform Struggle an NSM?................................................... 293 5.5 The Peasant as Social Actor........................................................................................ 301 5.6 The Interpellated Subject ............................................................................................ 306 5.7 A New Subject Position.............................................................................................. 311 5.8 Hegemonic Pressure and the Rhetoripolitical Strategy .............................................. 315 5.8 Rhetoripolitics and Identity......................................................................................... 321 5.9.2 Non-verbal responses to rhetoripolitical pressures............................................. 323 5.10 Consequences............................................................................................................. 326 5.11 The Future of the Paraguayan Land Reform Struggle.............................................. 330 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................. 335 Index of Abbreviations ..............................................................................................................