Showing papers in "The Journal of Peasant Studies in 1986"
TL;DR: In this article, everyday forms of peasant resistance in South-east Asia have been studied, and a survey of these forms can be found in the Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, No.
Abstract: (1986). Everyday forms of peasant resistance. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp. 5-35.
389 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the interlinkages between gender, poverty and agricultural growth in India are explored, showing that women and female children of poor rural households bear a disproportionately high share of the burden of poverty.
Abstract: This article explores the interlinkages between gender, poverty and agricultural growth in India. It shows how women and female children of poor rural households bear a disproportionately high share of the burden of poverty. This is manifest especially in a systematic bias against females in the intra‐household distribution of food and health care. However, there are significant cross‐regional differences in the extent of the bias which is much higher in the north‐western states relative to the southern. Some of the likely factors ‐ economic, social, historical ‐ underlying these differences are discussed here. The specific problems of female‐headed households are separately considered. Also, the on‐going debate on the relationship between rural poverty and agricultural growth is critically examined. In addition, a detailed quantitative analysis is undertaken of the differential effects of the new agricultural technology, and associated growth, on the employment and earnings of female and male agricultura...
165 citations
71 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the contribution of unfree labour to capitalist restructuring in the agrarian sector, a process whereby free wage labour is replaced by bonded labour, and the economic and extra-economic modes of compulsion required to enforce labour-service obligations incurred as a result of indebtedness are also considered, in particular the role of kinship.
Abstract: Based on fieldwork in La Convencion, Peru, and the Indian Punjab, this article examines the contribution of unfree labour to capitalist restructuring in the agrarian sector, a process whereby free wage labour is replaced by bonded labour. Debt bondage is analysed in relation to class struggle in these labour‐scarce contexts, specifically with regard to its utilisation by capitalist producers to lower the cost and simultaneously maintain control over both the migrant and local components of their workforce. The economic and extra‐economic modes of compulsion required to enforce labour‐service obligations incurred as a result of indebtedness are also considered, in particular the role of kinship. Since this kind of agrestic servitude involves the attachment through debt of workers not so much to land but to an individual employer, contemporary bonded labour is theorised as a form of modern slavery.
59 citations
TL;DR: From foot dragging to flight: The evasive history of peasant avoidance protest in south and south-east Asia is described in this article, with a focus on South-East Asia.
Abstract: (1986). From footdragging to flight: The evasive history of peasant avoidance protest in south and South‐East Asia. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp. 64-86.
58 citations
TL;DR: The authors conducted a survey in 80 villages in West Bengal in 1981-82, separated into five clusters of neighbouring villages, and found some significant, though varying, evidence of territorial segmentation of the rural labour market and of limited labour mobility even within adjacent territories.
Abstract: On the basis of a survey that the authors conducted in 80 villages in West Bengal in 1981–82, separated into five clusters of neighbouring villages, they find some significant, though varying, evidence of territorial segmentation of the rural labour market and of limited labour mobility even within adjacent territories. Personal connections between employers and employees, mutual trust and credit relationships turn out to be more important determinants of labour mobility than short‐run wage differences.
48 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a detailed discussion of Marx's theorisation of a landed class in the capitalist mode of production is presented, where it is argued that Marx does not consider landlords as feudal leftovers but does indeed succeed in providing a sophisticated theory of capitalist landed property as an independent class.
Abstract: This article consists of a detailed discussion of Marx's theorisation of a landed class in the capitalist mode of production. It is argued that Marx does not consider landlords as feudal leftovers but does indeed succeed in providing a sophisticated theory of capitalist landed property as an independent class, which conforms in all major respects with his theorisation of capital and wage‐labour. Moreover, the role of landed property in the process of capitalist development of relative surplus‐value extraction is analysed. It is argued that it is possible to speak of different forms of capitalist relations according to whether landed property or capital provides the leading force behind the development process. Capitalist development is then shown to be the outcome of a class struggle between landed property, capital and wage‐labour. This process is briefly illustrated with reference to England in the 1840s and Latin America in the 1960s.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, everyday resistance to injustice in a Philippine village is described in the context of everyday forms of Peasant resistance in South-East Asia, with emphasis on the role of women.
Abstract: (1986) Everyday resistance to injustice in a Philippine village The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp 107-123
43 citations
40 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the complexity of the dynamics of backward agriculture and found that the very process of polarisation itself generates a contradictory process of stabilisation of the small peasantry through the creation of supplementary income opportunities.
Abstract: Backward agrarian economies like that of contemporary Bangladesh are generally held to be strongly subject to a process of polarisation between those with increasing ownership of land and those who become landless with nothing but their labour‐power to sell. Empirical evidence has often been at variance with such unilinear prognosis. Using data from south‐eastern Bangladesh, this study examines the complexity of the dynamics of backward agriculture. It is shown that the very process of polarisation itself generates a contradictory process of stabilisation of the small peasantry through the creation of supplementary income opportunities. It is the resultant dynamic which often manifests itself in the persistence of a large number of small‐owner farms amidst the process of polarisation.
40 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of everyday forms of peasant resistance in South-east Asia, focusing on the middle-ground of everyday peasant resistance. But they do not discuss the role of the media in this process.
Abstract: (1986). Patrolling the middle‐ground: Methodological perspectives on ‘everyday peasant resistance‘. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp. 36-48.
TL;DR: In this article, tenants' non-violent resistance to landowner claims in a central Luzon island is discussed. But the authors focus on the everyday forms of Peasant Resistance in South-East Asia.
Abstract: (1986). Tenants’ non‐violent resistance to landowner claims in a central Luzon. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp. 87-106.
TL;DR: In this paper, two models of Nicaragua's agrarian structure are examined, the capitalist agroexport model and the peasant capitalism model, and their policy implications as to the role of state farms, harvest labour shortages, the class composition of popular organizations, and role of large and medium-sized producers are compared.
Abstract: Two models of Nicaragua's agrarian structure are examined, the capitalist agro‐export model and the peasant capitalism model. Their policy implications as to the role of state farms, harvest labour shortages, the class composition of popular organizations, and the role of large and medium‐sized producers are compared. The second model is shown to reflect better Nicaragua's agrarian structure. Neither model, however, has provided policies capable of resolving the problems of the majority of Nicaragua's semiproletarians, who continue to be largely marginalized from the policy process. The reasons for this outcome are discussed and some tentative recommendations proposed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare the average return to labour power in subsistence production with the return associated with participation in the capitalist economy, and highlight some of the relationships that exist between capitalist and pre-capitalist production, and seek to offer a partial explanation for an arrested transition to capitalism.
Abstract: Like peasant populations in many areas of the world, the Aymara of southern Peru have been subjected to a variety of social, political and economic pressures that have radically altered relations of production and exchange. However, in spite of being altered, precapitalist social relations persist in juxtaposition with increased participation in the expanding capitalist economy. By comparing the average return to labour power in subsistence production with the return associated with participation in the capitalist economy, this article highlights some of the relationships that exist between capitalist and pre‐capitalist production, and seeks to offer a partial explanation for an arrested transition to capitalism.
TL;DR: By disaggregating the peasantry, this paper found that a combination of those pockets of pre-colonial accumulation which had survived the violence of the 1890s, and the productive reinvestment of income earned in wage labour, gave rise to a distinctive pattern of rural differentiation.
Abstract: By disaggregating the peasantry, this article seeks to explain the variety of experience uncovered by previous local studies of the Zimbabwean countryside. A combination of those pockets of pre‐colonial accumulation which had survived the violence of the 1890s, and the productive reinvestment of income earned in wage labour, gave rise to a distinctive pattern of rural differentiation. By the start of the 1920s a class of small farmers had emerged.
TL;DR: In this article, a plea is made for studies of rural England based on class analyses, and including all of the various groups in the English countryside, in order to examine these people within a developed capitalist economy, concepts developed by students of the peasantry are likely to be of value.
Abstract: Small‐scale family‐based agricultural production was a common feature of rural England before the First World War. These producers were distinct from capitalist farmers in that labour was not normally employed, and surplus value was therefore not appropriated by the farmer. These people have been largely ignored by historians of rural England on the assumption that they were either numerically insignificant or were unimportant. The first of these assumptions is unsustainable and the second is unsubstantiated. In order to examine these people within a developed capitalist economy, concepts developed by students of the peasantry are likely to be of value, and a plea is made for studies of rural England based on class analyses, and including all of the various groups in the English countryside.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that many of these puzzles can be solved by juxtaposing Marxist thought on to the neo-classical tools of analysis by concentrating on a specific type of sharecropping from which the rest of the puzzle can be explained.
Abstract: Sharecropping has posed many puzzles to the theoretician. It seems to disappear with the coming of capitalism and yet again evidence exists for its reappearance and cyclical behaviour. This article maintains that many of these puzzles can be solved by juxtaposing Marxist thought on to the neo‐classical tools of analysis. This is achieved by concentrating on a specific type of sharecropping from which the rest of the puzzle can be explained. The way is also paved for a general model of differentiated peasantry according to the initial endowments of land and labour. The link with the ‘Inverse Relationship’ is also explained.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the fact of and reasons for pre and post-reform change in the structure of the fiesta system on a rural estate in the province of La Convencion, and its effect on the development of a capitalist agriculture.
Abstract: This article considers the fact of and reasons for pre‐ and post‐reform change in the structure of the fiesta system on a rural estate in the province of La Convencion, and its effect on the development of a capitalist agriculture. In economic terms, this process involves a transformation of the fiesta from a context in which the landlord extracts rent from his tenants to one in which different peasant strata struggle for control over means of production acquired as a result of the agrarin reform. In politico‐ideological terms, the fiesta operates as an arena where contradictory, non‐religious, and class‐specific idioms of struggle are accepted or rejected by the protagonists.
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a qualitative and quantitative idea of the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development.
Abstract: The study attempts to highlight the interrelation between three central points in the ongoing debate on the political economy of development: viability, surplus, and class-formation. A case study of the development of rural labour systems in Northern Nigeria is meant to provide both a better qualitative and quantitative idea of this interrelation. After an analysis of the socio-economic effects of forced and bonded labour during colonial times, the articulation of different systems of family and non-family labour has been investigated. Class-specific effects of labour and capital input do even result in an increasing use of communal labour by rich and middle peasants after the Nigerian Civil War: its form remains, but its content changes fundamentally. The socio-economic and material base for small-scale peasant subsistence production has been gradually destroyed.
TL;DR: The Gothic novel in England is not a pastoral idyll invulnerable to historical or political changes and undisturbed by moral or spiritual anxieties as mentioned in this paper, and the rural landscape in it is a part of the complex social, economic and ethical history determining the agrarian arrangements of the age.
Abstract: The Gothic novel in England is not a pastoral idyll invulnerable to historical or political changes and undisturbed by moral or spiritual anxieties. The rural landscape in it is a part of the complex social, economic and ethical history determining the agrarian arrangements of the age. It rejects pastoral nostalgia as a demonic illusion, and concerns itself with those specific conditions of inequality, power, work and ownership of land which determine the material lives of human beings. The article discusses in detail the images of nature and the social relations that dominate the scenes in the countryside in the novels of Mrs Radcliffe, James Hogg, M. G. Lewis, Mary Shelley, William Godwin and others.
TL;DR: In this paper, the conditions under which peasant cultivators and rural artisans participate in movements of social transformation, a case in point being the Fascio movement of Sicily in the late nineteenth century.
Abstract: This article explores the conditions under which peasant cultivators and rural artisans participate in movements of social transformation, a case in point being the Fascio movement of Sicily in the late nineteenth century. It analyses the reasons why artisans could play a critical role in politicising local protest and articulating it with pan‐European socialist movements, by describing their relations to other classes in a differentiated peasant community.
TL;DR: A review of some important recent works on peasant movements in India examines four major questions concerning (a) the social locus of rebellions, (b) the role of capitalism and imperialism, (c) the part played by existing state power, and (d) role of parties or organisations.
Abstract: A.R. Desai (ed.), Peasant Struggles in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979. Pp.xxv + 772; Rs. 140. Sunil Sen, Peasant Movements in India: Mid‐Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1982. Pp.275; Rs.75. D.N. Dhanagare, Peasant Movements in India: 1920–1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Pp.xii + 254; £12. This review of some important recent works on peasant movements in India examines four major questions concerning (a) the social locus of rebellions, (b) the role of capitalism and imperialism, (c) the part played by existing state power, and (d) the role of parties or organisations. It is argued that while there is no unchanging social base the disproportionately high degree of tribal participation in armed rebellion may provide some clue to the relative lack of similar participation among the mainstream peasantry, that capitalist imperialism is a multi faceted phenomenon impinging on the peasantry in many ways, that existing state power plays a major part in rebellio...
TL;DR: In this article, two studies of singular importance for the student of health politics and health care in Asia are singled out for detailed review: one on China, the other on India.
Abstract: S.M. Hillier and J. A. Jewell, Health Care and Traditional Medicine in China 1800–1982, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. Pp.xix + 452; £25.00. D. Banerji, Poverty, Class and Health Culture in India (Vol.1), New Delhi: Prachi Prakashan, 1982. Pp.x + 309; Rs.100. W.A. Zaman, Public Participation in Development and Health Programs: Lessons from Rural Bangladesh, London and New York: University Press of America, 1984. Pp.xix + 291; £15.15. (paperback). J.K. van Ginneken and A.S. Muller (eds.), Maternal and Child Health in Rural Kenya: An Epidemiological Study, Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1984. Pp.viii + 373; £15.95. The expression ‘political economy of health’ has quite different implications to scholars working within differing paradigms. The range of interpretations is apparent from an overview of work in this field in recent years. Two studies of singular importance for the student of health politics and health care in Asia are singled out for detailed review: one on China, the other on India. The re...
TL;DR: In this paper, everyday forms of peasant resistance in South-east Asia have been studied in the context of a Seminar on Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South East Asia.
Abstract: (1986). Seminar: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 13, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South‐East Asia, pp. 144-148.