Agrarian Change

Review - George Kunnath, Rebels from the Mud Houses: Dalits and the Making of the Maoist Revolution in Bihar (New Delhi, 2012)

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming in Journal of Agrarian Change 12 (4), 2012

Review - Paul Brass, An Indian Political Life: Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1937 to 1961 (New Delhi, 2011)

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming in Contemporary South Asia 22 (3), 2012

Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.

Συνεταιριστικά δίκτυα στη διαχείριση της αγροτικής πίστης (1914-1940). Ουτοπία, ιδεολογική κατασκευή ή «εργαλείο» αγροτικής πολιτικής;» = Cooperative networks for the agricultural credit's organisation. 1914-1940. Utopia, ideological ''construction'' or implementation of the central agricultural policy?

by Catherine Brégianni

in Proceedings of the Conference The Greek rural society and economy during the interwar Venizelist period, edit. by D. Panagiotopoulos, D. P. Sotiropoulos, Athens, Agricultural University of Athens/National Research Foundation «Eleftherios Venizelos», 2007, p. 89-110. In Greek

Cultivating the Rural Citizen: Modernity, Agrarianism and Citizenship in Late Tsarist Estonia

by Johan Eellend

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

Réforme agraire et monétisation de l’économie agraire en Grèce (de la fin du XIXe siècle à la Seconde Guerre mondiale

by Catherine Brégianni

The Impossibility of Just Land Acquisition

by Swagato Sarkar

Published in "Economic and Political Weekly", October 8, 2011 vol xlvi, no 41

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 has been introduced in Lok Sabha, which will replace... more The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 has been introduced in Lok Sabha, which will replace the much criticised Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The new Bill aims to “ensure a humane, participatory, informed consultative and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanisation”. It tries to comprehensively define “public purpose” and outlines various kinds of compensation which will be provided to the displaced landowners and the people dependent on the acquired land. It proposes that consent from 80% of the affected families needs to be obtained (similar to the “free, prior and informed consent” policy ideology) and “a Social Impact Assessment of proposals leading to displacement of people” to be conducted before the acquisition. The Bill wants private companies to buy land directly through “private negotiations on
a ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ basis” for their private use. It is quite evident that the Bill is an attempt to gain control over the conflict and violence associated with land acquisition and respond to the resistance movements against land acquisition
across India.

This article examines the tropes of “humane process of land acquisition”, “just and fair compensation”, “public purpose”, “voluntary/involuntary acquisition”, “willing/ unwilling seller” which frame the normative argument of this Bill (and also the debate around land acquisition in India) vis-à-vis the demand of and/natural resources for the expansion of private capital and the demands of the people opposing such acquisitions.

Placing the Plantation In Smallholder Agriculture: Evidence From Costa Rica

by David Lansing

Lansing D, Bidegaray P, Hansen D, McSweeney K. 2008. Placing the plantation in smallholder agriculture: evidence from Costa Rica. Ecological Engineering 34(4): 358-372.

Where large-scale plantation agriculture spatially coexists with smallholding agriculturalists, they interact in... more Where large-scale plantation agriculture spatially coexists with smallholding agriculturalists, they interact in multiple ways. A number of researchers have addressed the broader social, environmental, and economic consequences of smallholder/plantation relationships. Few studies, however, have examined the household-level conditions that drive smallholders to engage in plantation wage work. Research from off-farm and non-farm labor markets offer a number of clues to what types of households participate in plantation wage work. These studies, however, use aggregate economic categories and fail to consider the specific case of plantation wage work. Utilizing household survey data, this paper seeks to understand the relationship between smallholders and plantations by examining the household-level conditions that lead to engagement with plantation wage work within Costa Rica's Dos Novillos watershed. Our principle findings are: (1) agricultural assets are negatively predictive of engagement in plantation wage work; (2) a household's male labor availability is strongly predictive of a household's level of engagement in the plantation economy; (3) participation in plantation wage work appears to be an income strategy for asset-poor households more generally. Overall, this study finds little engagement in plantation wage work by smallholding agricultural households. Instead, this type of work appears to be the domain of asset-poor households that are marginally engaged in agriculture. This paper concludes by suggesting policy prescriptions and an agenda for future research in this watershed.

Balance and Imbalances in Village Economy: Access to Irrigation Water and Farming Systems in the Chao Phraya Delta

by Francois Molle

Agrarian change and the land system in the Chao Phraya delta, Thailand

by Francois Molle

Social and Economic Patterns of Landlord–Tenant Relationships in the Chao Phraya Delta, Thailand: An Historical Perspective

by Francois Molle

The Beginnings of a Movement: Leagues of Agrarian Communities, Unions of Industrial Workers, and Their Struggles in Mexico, 1920-1929

by Miles Rodriguez

Ph.D. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University, 2010, 344 pages

This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning... more This study is the history of a worker and peasant movement that organized in Mexico during the 1920s. At the beginning of 1929, labor unions and agrarian leagues united into a single worker-peasant movement, with organizational components dedicated to meeting worker and peasant demands through agrarian reform, union struggle, and electoral politics. The study thus follows as closely as possible the internal and broader struggles of each separate organization, how the organizations built power, first in the period when they were separate (1920-1926), then in the period when they united (1927-1929), and finally in the period when they divided (March-July, 1929). The first chapter is dedicated to discovering the ways in which leagues of agrarian communities arose in many regions of Mexico in the early 1920s, and how the agrarian league in Veracruz then combined with other leagues on a national level. Because workers in the railroad industry made the greatest difference for the ways in which workers in the country's main, national industries, and in independent, autonomous unions, united during this decade, the second and third chapters detail the struggles of railroad transportation workers during a major class conflict. In chapters four and five, on mass struggles for worker- peasant unity, I argue that the unification of worker and peasant organizations into two different kinds of alliances, an independent union confederation and an electoral bloc, derived from earlier experiences of conflict, contemporaneous debates on worker-peasant unity, and opportunities opened by the growing national crisis. After it united on political grounds, the movement divided on military grounds, during and immediately after the Escobar Rebellion of 1929, which is the subject of the final chapter.

Géographie de l’eau et interactions scalaires : le delta du Chao Phraya (Thaïlande) et son bassin versant

by Francois Molle

Coffee, Christianity and Conflict: An Update on the Central Highlands of Vietnam

by Pamela McElwee

Policies of Prejudice: Ethnicity and Shifting Cultivation In Vietnam

by Pamela McElwee

Watershed, 1999

Dehkans, Diversification and Dependencies: Rural Transformation in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A. and B.B. Bock (2011). ‘Dehkans, Diversification and Dependencies: Rural Transformation in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan’. Journal of Agrarian Change 11: 581–597.

This article describes how political and economic transition has affected the system of agricultural production in... more This article describes how political and economic transition has affected the system of agricultural production in Khorezm, Uzbekistan in terms of economic practises and relationships. Based on recent fieldwork, the paper argues that the local agricultural economy is a hybrid economy, where production for market, quasi-market and subsistence merge into and co-constitute one another. In order to keep the system going, and to make up for the uncertainties in the formal context of production, the relation between new private fermer and the peasant (dehkan) households is of particular importance. This relation resembles neo-patrimonial patron-client relations, which are both personal and informal while also being based on formal, contractual relations. The relations are asymmetric and based on the limited and unevenly distributed resources. The division of power is unequal but not fixed due to the ongoing transition of the economic system.

Politics of Agricultural Water Management in Khorezm, Uzbekistan

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A.; P.P. Mollinga; D. Zavgorodnyaya and R. Yalcin (2011). ‘Politics of Agricultural Water Management in Khorezm, Uzbekistan’, in: C. Martius; I. Rudenko; J.P.A. Lamers and P.L.G. Vlek. Cotton, water, salts and soums - economic and ecological restructuring in Khorezm, Uzbekistan. Springer. pp.127-140.

On the basis of intensive fieldwork in the period 2002-2006, which combined interviews with direct observations, the... more On the basis of intensive fieldwork in the period 2002-2006, which combined interviews with direct observations, the implementation of two policies in the field of agricultural water management in Uzbekistan is analysed: the reform of the water bureaucracy along basin boundaries and the establishment of Water Users Associations. It is shown that the Uzbek government used these policies creatively for addressing some pressing issues, while the inherent decentralisation objective was pushed to the far background. Both reforms are used to strengthen the state’s grip on agricultural production regulation. The latter is at the centre of day-to-day agricultural water management dynamics. It is shown that decentralisation policies originally developed in society-centric policy processes cannot be easily applied in countries with state-centric politics such as Uzbekistan.

Changing patterns of water distribution under the influence of land reforms and simultaneous WUA establishment: Two cases from Khorezm, Uzbekistan

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A.. 2007. Changing patterns of water distribution under the influence of land reforms and simultaneous WUA establishment: Two cases from Khorezm, Uzbekistan. Irrigation and Drainage Systems, 21(3-4): 265–276.

In 2005 the Uzbek government accelerated the dissolution process of collective farms through full-scale land reform.... more In 2005 the Uzbek government accelerated the dissolution process of collective farms through full-scale land reform. As the central production unit, the collective enterprise was supplanted by a private, family-based enterprise. Simultaneously Water Users Associations (WUAs) were established that operate and maintain the irrigation and drainage infrastructure of the former collective farms.
Though these land-cum-water reforms could in principle initiate enormous changes, there is still a strong continuity due to the state-regulated agricultural system. Although officially only cotton and wheat production are still subject to a state order system, the whole agricultural production is still under strict state control.
This paper builds on research conducted during the spring and summer of 2005 and 2006 in the oasis of Khorezm, Uzbekistan. Through field walks in combination with semi- and non-structured interviews, two cases of water management at former collective farm (FCF) level were distinguished: one at the onset of reform and one two years after full-scale reforms. The former shows the strong interlinkage at FCF level between the control of agricultural production and water management. However, the second case shows that even in the post-reform context, where the co-ordination of production and the control of cropping areas are formally no longer arranged at this level, these functions are informally reproduced through the new institutions. The WUA forms a crucial link between privatised producers and a state preoccupied with control.

Contesting rural resources: Emerging ‘forms’ of agrarian production in Uzbekistan

by Gert Jan Veldwisch

Veldwisch, G.J.A. and M. Spoor. 2008. Contesting rural resources: Emerging ‘forms’ of agrarian production in Uzbekistan. Journal of Peasant Studies, 35(3): 424–451.

The most recent land reform in Uzbekistan, in which Large Farm Enterprises (LFEs) were split into medium-sized fermer... more The most recent land reform in Uzbekistan, in which Large Farm Enterprises (LFEs) were split into medium-sized fermer enterprises, left, alongside the country’s overwhelming majority of small dekhan peasants, continued strong state intervention in agrarian production. Three ‘forms’ (rather than ‘modes’) of production emerged: (1) state-ordered production of cotton and wheat; (2) commercial production, in particular of rice; and (3) household production of other food staples, including wheat and rice. These production ‘forms’ or processes are characterised by distinct input and output relations, terms of trade and technical requirements. They interrelate through competition for limited resources, such as land, water and other inputs, rather than competition amongst the actors themselves (the state, the new medium-sized fermers and the small dekhan peasants). Contesting of resources is particularly evident between the (state-ordered) cotton crop and the (commercial) rice crop in the case on which our argument is based, namely the province of Khorezm, downstream of the Amu Darya, in the western part of the country.