The uneasy art of “being together”: Elaborating transnational movements against global production networks in Cambodia, Paris, University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, working paper 2, 29 p.

The last two decades have witnessed a growing literature on transnational movements and their significant roles in global production networks. It remains nevertheless important to observe that these complex partnerships are not always fruitful, as it is often claimed. This paper critically examines the way peasants, assisted by civil society organisations (CSOs), cooperate with transnational movements targeting governments and transnational corporations in Southeast Asia. Based on two Cambodia case studies, we concentrate on conflict-ridden situations of transnational corporations’ investments that involve land-grabs and negatively impact the livelihood of farmers. Being frequently driven by international CSOs, such global assemblage become a double-edged sword, as it will be later explained. There is a need to counterbalance this neo-colonial tendency, with its power imbalance, in the era of globalised CSOs. Transnational movements supporting local CSOs need to embrace their point of view through a genuine collaborative process. If not, they are bound to achieve, at best, their own objectives but not those envisioned by affected communities.