We Are the Solution: Seed Sovereignty, Local Knowledge Systems and Women’s Liberation Through Rice Farming in Southern Senegal

Abstract: The system of capitalist agriculture increasingly shows its social, economic and ecological failures. Some of the alternatives are based on food and seed sovereignty. However, the knowledge systems underlying seed saving practices, especially in the West African context, have been overlooked. To investigate the relation between seed sovereignty and local knowledge systems, I analyse the case study of rice seed preservation as carried on by the movement for food sovereignty and women’s liberation Nous Sommes la Solution (We Are the Solution, NSS) in the Southern Region of Senegal. I draw from participatory action research and feminist epistemology and employ mixed methods, including participant observation, interviews, survey, document and secondary data analysis. In the context of rice seed preservation practices in the South of Senegal, local knowledge systems, defined by principles of embodied knowledge, biocultural diversity, commons and care, contribute to define seed sovereignty as a transversal anticapitalist boundary struggle. In this struggle, women guide resistance and socioecological transformation.