Showing papers in "Journal of Agrarian Change in 2006"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market 'ideal type' communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa, and continues to be shared by both sides of the current land tenure reform debate.
Abstract: Contemporary discourse on land in Africa is polarized between advocates of tenure reform through state registration of individual titles to land and others who claim that customary or 'communal' tenure is the only check against landlessness among the poor in the African countryside, and that 'pro-poor' land policy should therefore strengthen customary rights to land. This paper draws on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market 'ideal type' communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa, and continues to be shared by both sides of the current land tenure reform debate. The paper argues that recognition of the specific characteristics of 'vernacular land markets'- commoditized transfers of land within the framework of customary tenure - is essential if state land policies are to succeed in promoting the interests of the poor.
271 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the marginality, social exclusion, new rurality and rural livelihoods, as well as the ethnic and gender dimensions of poverty, and argued that the starting point for the eradication of poverty has to be the implementation of a development strategy that addresses such inequalities while at the same time achieving competitiveness within the global system.
Abstract: Several approaches to the study of poverty are discussed, to learn from their strengths as well as their weaknesses. For this purpose the concepts of marginality, social exclusion, new rurality and rural livelihoods, as well as the ethnic and gender dimensions of poverty, are examined. The debate on the peasantization (capitalization) or proletarianization (pauperization) of the peasantry sets the scene for the analysis of the different strategies adopted by peasants and rural labourers to secure their survival and perhaps achieve some prosperity. In examining the success or failure of interventions by governments, civil society and international organizations in the reduction of poverty, it is claimed that the State has a key role to perform. Furthermore, it is argued that poverty is caused and reproduced by the unequal distribution of resources and power at the household, local, national and international levels. Therefore, the starting point for the eradication of poverty has to be the implementation of a development strategy that addresses such inequalities while at the same time achieving competitiveness within the global system.
130 citations
TL;DR: The Land Law was finally passed in the summer of 2005 as mentioned in this paper, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has taken on significant responsibility for monitoring the reform programme.
Abstract: A decade ago, Rwanda embarked on a major land reform programme. The government envisaged a new land law, supported by a land policy, and claimed that the new tenure system would contribute to enhancing food production, social equity and the prevention of conflict. The Land Law was finally passed in the summer of 2005. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) has taken on significant responsibility for monitoring the reform programme. This article provides a contextualized reading of the new Law. It argues that its emphasis on the obligation to consolidate fragmented family plots and register them will exacerbate social tension, but that some of the potential for social strife may be reduced because the state will allow flexibility in how the Land Law is implemented.
105 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a review essay on current work in commodity studies considers, at some length, an important and distinctive text by Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte, which draws on a unique set of case studies of African export commodities, using (and developing) the framework of Global Value Chain (GVC) theory, of American provenance, together with elements of the mostly French literature on quality conventions.
Abstract: This first instalment of a two-part review essay on current work in commodity studies considers, at some length, an important and distinctive text by Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte. It draws on a unique set of case studies of African export commodities, using (and developing) the framework of Global Value Chain (GVC) theory, of American provenance, together with elements of the mostly French literature on quality conventions. Gibbon and Ponte also seek to incorporate key mechanisms of globalization and international trade, and their forms of regulation, and to evaluate the effects of the book's analysis and argument for prospects of improving the performance of African agricultural exports in particular. Here we provide a detailed exposition, discussion, and assessment of the book. We conclude that, for all its intellectual virtues, there are some central tensions in its argument that reflect the lacunae and limitations of the kind of economic sociology the authors employ – which, contentiously, they designate as ‘historical political economy’.
93 citations
TL;DR: In the late 1980s, markets involving agricultural land have emerged in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnam) as discussed by the authors, and a major reason for that was villagers' everyday politics gnawed the underpinnings of the collectives until they collapsed.
Abstract: Since the late 1980s, markets involving agricultural land have emerged in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. One major reason is that collective farms, previously a central feature of the country's political economy, ended. And a major reason for that was villagers’ everyday politics gnawed the underpinnings of the collectives until they collapsed. Rural households, for the most part, wanted to farm separately. Today they do. Land is not privatized, however. Farming households have land use rights, not ownership. This tempers markets, as do other conditions arising from contending schools of thought in Vietnam about how land should be used, distributed and regulated.
81 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated the factors that prevented labour supply satisfying demand, how peasants in the area engaged with the labour market, and the impact of labour market growth on the household farm economy in Tanganyika.
Abstract: The East African Groundnut Scheme in Tanganyika is probably the most dramatic and most cited failure of the ambitions of British late colonial developmentalism. Issues of labour supply in the scheme's short history, and the relationship of labour supply with the peasant economy of Southern Province, have received almost no attention, a gap which this article aims to begin to fill. It suggests that the implementation of the scheme gave rise to a political battle over labour market control between the colonial state in Tanganyika and scheme managers. The paper documents how, without any support from the colonial administration, the scheme attempted to recruit the large numbers of workers it required, and its frustrations in doing so. It investigates the factors that prevented labour supply satisfying demand, how peasants in the area engaged with the labour market (and were able to adjust their participation in it), and the impact of labour market growth on the household farm economy.
59 citations
TL;DR: The two edited collections and the monograph reviewed here provide the means to consider an extended range of commodities, locations, commodity/value chains, and issues of theory and method in political economy, beyond those presented by Gibbon and Ponte as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The two edited collections and the monograph reviewed here provide the means to consider an extended range of commodities, locations, commodity/value chains, and issues of theory and method in political economy, beyond those presented by Gibbon and Ponte (2005) that we considered in the first part of this essay. Our discussion here touches on issues concerning how ‘global’ global commodity/value chains are; the symbolic attributes of commodities and commodity fetishism; the politics of consumption (or simply politics of selling and buying); the strengths and weaknesses of the economic sociology of commodity/value chains; and how the ‘slices’ extracted from larger organisms in studies of particular commodities may be reinserted, as it were, as part of the understanding of contemporary capitalism and of issues of development in the economies of the ‘South’.
56 citations
TL;DR: Using empirical evidence from the Philippine land reform (1972-2005), the authors examines land reform theory and practice, and argues that convention has a priori excluded a significant portion of actually existing land-based production and distribution relationships, while it has inadvertently included in its definition and analysis land transfers that do not constitute real redistributive reform.
Abstract: Using empirical evidence from the Philippine land reform (1972–2005), this paper examines land reform theory and practice, and argues that convention has a priori excluded a significant portion of actually existing land-based production and distribution relationships, while it has inadvertently included in its definition and analysis land transfers that do not constitute real redistributive reform. This problematic framing of ‘exclusion–inclusion’ has led to incorrect accounting and analysis of the nature, scope, pace and direction of change/reform that have occurred (or not) in the agrarian structure of a particular setting. This problem has prevented the emergence of nuanced comparative land reform studies, with possible further implications for studies that attempt to trace causal relationships between land redistribution and agrarian transformation.
42 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the form of labour hiring and the extent of unemployment in two villages in Haryana during 2002-3 and found that wage labourers, particularly women, faced extremely high levels of unemployment.
Abstract: Forms of labour hiring and the extent of unemployment are analysed using primary data collected from two villages in Haryana (India) during 2002-3. Data from these villages show that wage labourers, particularly women, faced extremely high levels of unemployment. Employment in agriculture was limited and new forms of labour hiring contracts had emerged under conditions of high unemployment. Earnings of manual workers were very low and gender disparities in wages very high. In one of the villages, a high concentration of landholdings and a decline in labour use facilitated the use of long-term workers. Labour relations were characterized by significant degrees of unfreedom, although the extent and nature of unfreedom varied considerably between casual and long-term workers, and between the two villages. In particular, long-term siri workers worked under conditions that were akin to bondage. It is argued that a very high degree of unemployment, combined with unequal caste and land relations and dependence on employers for credit, contributed to sustenance of unfree labour relations in rural Haryana.
30 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that the Brenner position is incomplete in its ignoring of peasant differentiation in feudal England, and suggested that if this is abstracted from an adequate examination of the transition to capitalism in England, the process cannot proceed.
Abstract: The focus of the essay is one specific theme pursued by Rodney Hilton: that of differentiation of the English feudal peasantry and the implications this had for the development of capitalism in England. His contribution on this, along with those of E. A. Kosminsky and of Maurice Dobb, are considered and are contrasted with the view of Robert Brenner. For Brenner peasant differentiation has no causal importance: it is an outcome of transformation and not a driving force in its securing. For Hilton, it is central to transformation: it is not an outcome but a determining variable, a causa causans rather than a causa causata. The Brenner position, it is argued, is incomplete in its ignoring of peasant differentiation in feudal England. It was one of Hilton’s accomplishments to explore this in scholarly detail, and with analytical precision. It is suggested that if this is abstracted from an adequate examination of the transition to capitalism in England cannot proceed.
29 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the development of a rural class structure in postcommunist Russia using survey data from Russian villages, and posited five measures of an emerging class structure: income stratification, land holdings, capital stock, class consciousness, and shared attitudes and values.
Abstract: Using survey data from Russian villages, this article examines the development of a rural class structure in postcommunist Russia. It is argued that as a result of market reforms, social and economic relations have evolved beyond stratification, and that, rather, a rural class structure is emerging. Five measures of an emerging class structure are posited: income stratification, land holdings, capital stock, class consciousness, and shared attitudes and values. Focusing on upper and lower income strata, significant differences are documented for each measure. The economic and political implications of the findings are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared findings from farm surveys conducted in Zimbabwe and Tanzania in 2001 and concluded that successful forms of market coordination may not only contribute to better system performance but also to fewer differences between cotton-producing households in terms of cotton output and to higher incomes from cotton production.
Abstract: This paper compares findings from farm surveys conducted in Zimbabwe and Tanzania in 2001. It sets out to answer why some cotton-producing households generate comparatively higher levels of total cotton output, and conversely why some households generate lower output. In the Tanzanian sample, variations in respondents’ cotton sales revolve entirely around respondents’ access to cropping land and possession of draught power, while observed differences in the Zimbabwean case are based on a combination of ownership-related assets and respondents’ access to manufactured inputs. At the same time, the extent of differences in volumes of cotton sales between the top and bottom quintiles is significantly higher in the Tanzanian survey than in the Zimbabwean one. This pattern becomes even more evident when comparing the performance of the bottom quintiles in the two samples. Against this background, the paper suggests that successful forms of market coordination may not only contribute to better ‘system performance’ but also to fewer differences between cotton-producing households in terms of cotton output and to higher incomes from cotton production.
TL;DR: In this article, the same arduous work carried out by a declining workforce has suddenly attained higher productivity and achieved economic growth, while maintaining the persistence of the antiquated hacienda system.
Abstract: Today Chilean agriculture has recovered from years of diminishing returns. The same arduous work carried out by a declining workforce has suddenly attained higher productivity and, therefore, achieved economic growth. This article suggests that Chile has undergone a series of fundamental changes in the last quarter of the twentieth century, which have intensified its capitalist development. It analyses the agrarian structure of the hacienda system during the period immediately before the agrarian reform, looking particularly at the transition to modern capitalism, agricultural growth and the land question. It argues that before the implementation of the agrarian reform, the country had not finished its transition to modern capitalism due to the persistence of the antiquated hacienda system. It further suggests that the land reform process – implemented and consolidated from 1964 to 1980 – permitted the culmination of the long-postponed transition to modern capitalism and gave rise to the ascendancy of an agro-industrial bourgeoisie and an export-oriented agriculture integrated into the world economy.
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of Morazha desam in the Malabar region of Kerala, which had one of the most oppressive agrarian systems in India before 1956, is presented.
Abstract: This article describes and analyses the ways in which public action in the State of Kerala in India helped to transform the standard of living of hired workers in agriculture. Specifically, the article analyses the extent of land and asset ownership, access to credit, access to social security schemes and food distribution systems and the conditions of housing and sanitation of households participating in agricultural wage work. The article is based as a case study of Morazha desam in the Malabar region of Kerala, which had one of the most oppressive agrarian systems in India before 1956–57. In 1955, another economist had studied Morazha desam; this study was conducted before one of the most important interventions through public action – land reform – took place in Malabar. The 1955 study had characterized the conditions of life of agricultural workers as ‘wretched in the extreme’. The present article documents the significant transformation in the quality of life that took place in Morazha after 1955, through a weakening of the factors that led to ‘wretched’ conditions of life in the earlier period. The destruction of traditional agrarian power by the state through land reform was the most critical step in this process.
TL;DR: This article reviewed a volume of case studies of land occupations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and critically examined the arguments advanced by Moyo and Yeros in their introduction and co-authored chapter on Zimbabwe.
Abstract: This essay reviews a provocative but flawed volume of case studies of land occupations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and critically examines the arguments advanced by Moyo and Yeros in their introduction and co-authored chapter on Zimbabwe. The editors’ core proposition is that the agrarian and national questions are linked in the periphery of capitalism because industrial transformation is incomplete, ‘disarticulated’ forms of accumulation predominate and dependent states are unable to exercise true sovereignty. The chief agent of struggles for agrarian reform, and the social base of rural social movements that occupy land as a key tactic, is identified as ‘the semiproletariat’. The political characteristics of these movements are discussed in the introduction, three continent-wide overviews and several case studies. Most chapters tend not to support the editors’ arguments, and sometimes contradict them. These arguments are in any case reductionist and over-schematic. The categories ‘semi-proletariat’ and ‘peasantry’ are often elided, and differences of conditions and trajectories are seldom acknowledged. A tendency to economism vitiates discussion of the politics of land. These problems are also in evidence in the chapter on Zimbabwe.
TL;DR: In this article, the impact of the fragmentation of the Roman Empire on state structures, social relations and economic systems is discussed, and it is argued that those social classes and regional economies that were the most profoundly integrated into the trans-regional imperial framework suffered the greatest degree of dislocation.
Abstract: In Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800, Chris Wickham provides a compelling analysis of the impact of the fragmentation of the Roman Empire on state structures, social relations and economic systems. Those social classes and regional economies that were the most profoundly integrated into the trans-regional imperial framework suffered the greatest degree of dislocation. In most regions the period 400–800 was associated with a localization and weakening of aristocratic power and a relative increase in peasant autonomy. In the archaeological record this process is discernible through the evidence for a simplification of patterns of production and exchange, as more sophisticated exchange networks, Wickham argues, were typically catalysed and sustained by aristocratic demand. This article suggests, however, that Wickham has perhaps understated the importance of demographic factors in the shifting balance of power between peasants and aristocrats, and, in certain instances, overstates the degree of discontinuity between the late Roman period and the early medieval in terms of agrarian relations of production.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the relationship between class, state and market, tracing the demise of the Southern planters and the emergence of the civil rights movement in the South.
Abstract: In this article, I examine the relationship between class, state and market. I analyse the process of class transformation, tracing the demise of the Southern planters. Scholars analysing the retrenchment of US agricultural policy in the 1970s frequently overlook the profound influence that this class segment had on the agricultural policy of price supports and production controls. Yet, this policy of supply management contributed to the transformation of the plantation–tenant system in the South. This transformation created an opportunity for the emergence of the civil rights movement, which further weakened the Southern planters and allowed for changes in agricultural policy. The retrenchment of agricultural policy between 1950 and 1975, then, must be understood in light of this process of class transformation.
TL;DR: Rodney Hilton as discussed by the authors was one of the towering historians of medieval England, who provided a formidable Marxist treatment of English feudalism, at once empirically rich, through extensive archival research, and theoretically informed.
Abstract: This essay is written in memory of Rodney Hilton (1916–2002), who died on 7 June 2002. He was one of the towering historians of medieval England. Along with the Russian scholar, E. A. Kosminsky, of a previous generation of historians, he provided a formidable Marxist treatment of English feudalism, at once empirically rich, through extensive archival research, and theoretically informed. His work, while displaying a particular vision of the nature of feudal society, and embracing certain recurring themes, is broad in its scope and varied in the issues it covers. The essay is offered as a tribute to the particular tradition of Marxist historical scholarship represented by him, and which he did so much to foster. A brief account of his career and writing is given. There is, in the present issue, a companion essay in which his views on peasant differentiation and the transition to capitalism in England are considered at length.