Agrarian Studies

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

India's Second Green Revolution? The Sociopoltiical Implications of Corporate-driven Agricultural Growth

by Jeffrey Witsoe

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.

Beyond Subalternity: The Political Aesthetics and Ethics of Adivasi Resistance in Contemporary Jharkhand

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming, Contemporary South Asia, BASAS Special Issue (January 2013)

Adivasis are typically viewed by scholars, activists, and policymakers alike as primitive subjects trapped within... more Adivasis are typically viewed by scholars, activists, and policymakers alike as primitive subjects trapped within modern state imaginaries. Adivasi politics, therefore, is understood vis-a-vis the dramaturgy of postcolonial tragedy. Such an understanding, I argue, denies any meaningful agency to adivasis, and prevents an exploration of the rich, multi-layered performances of resistance through which adivasi subject-formation is successfully negotiated in postcolonial India. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Jharkhand, this paper probes into the myriad tropes and strategies by which the modes, mechanisms, and meanings of modern state power have been reworked and resisted in two apparently opposed moments of resistance: the "peaceful" Koel-Karo anti-dam movement of the 1980s and the ongoing "violent" Maoist movement. In doing so, I show how the aesthetics of power are tied inextricably, albeit ironically, to the ethics of subaltern resistance, each acting and reacting upon the other to define the potentialities of and proscriptions on political expression in the margins of the postcolony.

“Agrarianism and Cultural Renewal.”

by Lee Cheek

“Agrarianism and Cultural Renewal.”  In The University Bookman, Volume 42, Number 1 (Spring) 2002.

Questioning pathways out of poverty: Indonesia as an illustrative case for the World Bank's transforming countries

by Mohamad Shohibuddin

Co-authored with Noer Fauzi Rachman and Laksmi A. Savitri.
Published in "Journal of Peasant Studies", Volume 36, Issue 3, 2009

The World Development Report 2008 uses Indonesia as an illustrative case for what it calls ‘transforming countries’.... more The World Development Report 2008 uses Indonesia as an illustrative case for what it calls ‘transforming countries’. The main argument of this paper is that the three pathways out of poverty (commercially-oriented entrepreneurial smallholder farming; rural non-farm enterprise development, and out-migration) prescribed by the Report should be theoretically and empirically questioned because of the possibility of a reverse consequence: the perpetuation of poverty in Indonesia.

Sketsa Perkembangan Reforma Agraria dan Studi Agraria: Sekelumit "Peta Navigasi"

by Mohamad Shohibuddin

Draft for comments

Banyak diskusi mengenai reforma agraria di tanah air, dalam kesan saya, kerap tidak jelas arahnya karena mereka yang... more Banyak diskusi mengenai reforma agraria di tanah air, dalam kesan saya, kerap tidak jelas arahnya karena mereka yang berdebat sering membayangkan "titik koordinat" berbeda saat sama-sama berbicara reforma agraria. Akibatnya diskusi tidak berjalan produktif dan mencerahkan, dalam arti dapat mengantarkan pesertanya pada pemahaman yang lebih baik mengenai masalah reforma agraria—terlepas apapun sikap yang diambil masing-masing setelahnya.
Tulisan ini adalah sketsa sederhana untuk sekedar menyajikan sekelumit "peta navigasi" mengenai reforma agraria dan studi agraria. Dalam peta ini selain hendak didudukkan lebih jelas perbedaan reforma agraria dan studi agraria, juga akan didedahkan lebih rinci bagaimana perkembangan konseptualisasi dan praktik mengenai keduanya hingga saat ini dengan berbagai variasinya. Diharapkan dengan begitu diskusi yang lebih produktif dan bernuansa mengenai RA akan dapat berkembang lebih baik lagi. Sebagai sketsa sederhana, tentu saja apa yang disajikan di sini bukanlah sebuah peta yang exhaustive, melainkan sekedar menampilkan isu dan kecenderungan yang dianggap penting.

‘Land grab’ as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia

by Tom Lavers

Published in the Journal of Peasant Studies (free access)

This paper examines the domestic political economy of so-called ‘land-grabbing’ in Ethiopia, assessing the motivations... more This paper examines the domestic political economy of so-called ‘land-grabbing’ in Ethiopia, assessing the motivations of the Ethiopian government, which has strongly promoted foreign agricultural investment. The paper draws on a unique set of federal and regional databases detailing foreign and domestic investments in Ethiopia to analyse the likely role investment will play in the Ethiopian economy and the areas which have been targeted for investment. The analysis identifies increased foreign exchange earnings as the main likely contribution of investment but in doing so highlights concerns for food security in Ethiopia, as the goal of national self-sufficiency has given way to a risky trade-based food security strategy. The paper also argues that the federal government's attempts to direct investment to sparsely-populated lowlands have important implications for the ethnic self-determination that is a key tenet of Ethiopia's federal system.

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.

A Evolução Recente da Questão Agrária e os Limites das Políticas Públicas do Governo Lula para o Meio Rural

by Pedro Christoffoli

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARANÁ-UFPR SETOR DE CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS CURSO DE MESTRADO EM ADMINISTRAÇÃO

by Pedro Christoffoli

The Much Maligned Peasant. Comparative Perspectives on the Productivity of the Small Farmer in Classical Antiquity

by Geoffrey Kron

in, L. De Ligt, S. Northwood (edd.), People, Land and Politics. Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC-AD14. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2008) 71-119.

In my article defending Lo Cascio’s interpretation of the Augustan census figures and the consequent high estimate for... more In my article defending Lo Cascio’s interpretation of the Augustan census figures and the consequent high estimate for the population of Italy under Augustus (comparable to the population of Italy ca. 1800), I deliberately avoided any comment on the level of agricultural productivity in Roman Italy. Nor did I address in any detail the possible defence of the Beloch-Taylor-Brunt population hypothesis based upon estimates of the agricultural carrying capacity of Italy. One could argue that one is unlikely, using Greco-Roman agricultural methods, to be able to feed a population comparable to that of 19th century Italy, particularly given that anthropometric evidence suggests a level of nutrition for Roman Italy that would not be attained in Early Modern Italy until the mid-20th century. I find this argument unconvincing, however, and I will canvass a few of the arguments against it in my contribution to this colloquium. Pleket’s ground-breaking comparative analysis of Roman and Early Modern agrarian history, and evidence for a significantly higher level of agricultural intensification in the Mezzogiorno during the Roman period cast doubt on Brunt’s pessimistic model of Roman agriculture. In my talk, I will briefly outline some of my own and others’ recent agronomic research on the high productivity of Roman mixed farming and animal husbandry, pointing out how archaeozoological and archaeobotanical evidence contradicts the conventional view of the poverty of Greco-Roman farming.

The core of my paper will place the model of Taylor and Brunt into a broader comparative perspective by examining the influence upon their picture of a conscious or unconscious analogy with English agrarian capitalism of the long 18th century, as typified by the enclosure movement and the Highland clearances. The orthodox interpretation of most Classical historians, influenced by Brunt’s pessimistic estimate of the productivity of farming by small-holding owner-occupiers, is based, I will argue, upon an uncritical acceptance of the hostile (and often self-interested) ideological attacks on peasant farming by the exponents of the English model of vast concentrated landholdings and large scale commercial tenant farming using landless labourers. I intend to examine this prejudice in the light of the critique of the Genevan economist Sismondi, using evidence for the productivity of 16th century English, and 17th and 18th century Dutch peasant farming as well as that of small holders in North America. I wish to show that the model of diversified intensive small-holdings idealized by the Romans and advocated by the Gracchi is in fact highly productive and commercially viable. I will show that the methods outlined by Cato the elder, and those later advocated, based on Hellenistic and Carthaginian agronomic practice, by Varro and Columella are well adapted for small-holders.

In addition, I wish to briefly address some weaknesses in the modern interpretation of the phenomenon of latifundia and the concentration of land-holdings contrary to the Licinian Sextian laws. Critical problems emerge in the conventional view as soon as one situates it within a broader historical perspective. Our ancient epigraphical and archaeological evidence argues strongly for the continued viability of small farms in the Gracchan period and beyond, a marked contrast with the profound proletarianization of the English rural populaton revealed in Bateman’s survey of landed property in Victorian England. Further, I will argue that the attitudes of wealthy Romans towards the acquisition and management of landed property strongly favour relatively small capital intensive farms rather than large or extensive estates, and will have placed far less pressure than is typically allowed upon the land available for small-holders. The Gracchan agrarian reforms can be seen as the acceleration of a long-standing and relatively uncontroversial Roman tradition of providing land grants to poor or landless farmers, so dramatically different from the adamant opposition of the English landed interest to the acquisition even of small garden plots by their labourers. The alarm of the Roman optimates ought therefore to be seen in terms of the broader political implications of the aggressive use of tribunician legislation to relax their grip on power, coming as it did, in the context of the successful popularis campaign to introduce the secret ballot, which had succeeded only a few years earlier, in 139 BC. Finally, I will argue that Rosenstein's critique of the Brunt thesis is even more compelling if one corrects for the low population estimate and pessimistic estimate of the productivity of peasant farms. It is highly likely that paid military service, supplemented with booty from successful campaigns, would have served as an important safety-valve to cushion the impact of the chronic land-hunger of Roman and Italian small-holders.

MICROCREDIT GOVERNANCE

by FREDE MORENO

Different scholars argue that good governance is crucial for an effective and efficient delivery of microcredit... more Different scholars argue that good governance is crucial for an effective and efficient delivery of microcredit services to the enterprising poor and builds financially viable local financial intermediaries and sustainable microcredit programs.  Microcredit governance includes the provision of adequate financial and technical support for the income-generating activities and micro-entrepreneurial projects of the poor who have been historically excluded from the mainstream commercial banking system.  Hence, the application and utilization of microcredit as a tool for poverty reduction becomes the primary responsibility of the government.  Microcredit now becomes part of the Philippine government’s poverty alleviation programs that is fully advocated and supported by the international donor community and implemented in collaboration with credit-granting institutions from the civil society and business sectors.  The governance of microcredit programs is further enshrined in the Philippine government’s development thrusts and priorities along the lines of self- employment generation, food for the family, children’s education and decent housing.  The attainment of these thrusts and priorities through microcredit programs, however, emphasizes most heavily on institutional arrangements for the transfer of wholesale credit funds from the international donor community to retail microcredit facilities administered by credit-granting civil society organizations in the barangays and finally to individual borrowers.  Anchored on the principles of good governance for sustainable human development Microcredit Governance provides research-based theories and empirical evidences to support the theoretical proposition that financial viability objectives are attainable in government-driven poverty alleviation and rural development interventions.  The findings and observations are sufficient to encourage organized business sector actions in pro-poor microcredit programs in collaboration with the government and civil society organizations.

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.

Nytt lys på middelalderjordbruket

by Ingvild Øye

Arkeo nr 1/1999, 29-36, Bergen 1999

Agrarian Commonwealth or Entrepôt of the Orient: Competing Conceptions of Canada and the BC Terms of Union Debate of 1871

by Forrest Pass

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 17.1 (2006): 25-53; abridged version reprinted in J.M. Bumsted, L. Kuffert, and M. Ducharme, eds. Interpreting Canada's Past: A Post-Confederation Reader, 4th ed. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Much of the historiography of British Columbia’s 1871 entry into Confederation
has concentrated on the motives... more Much of the historiography of British Columbia’s 1871 entry into Confederation
has concentrated on the motives of British Columbians in seeking union with
Canada. This article examines the discussion of the province’s Terms of Union
in the Canadian parliament and in the eastern Canadian press, and recasts
the debate as a conflict between two competing visions of Canada’s economic
future. Proponents of the admission of British Columbia believed access to
the Pacific would transform the new Dominion into a commercial superpower.
Opponents of the Terms looked upon distant, mountainous, and sparsely populated
British Columbia as a liability, a region and a community that, unlike
the Prairie West, could never conform to the agrarian ideal that underpinned
their conception of Canada. A reconsideration of the Terms of Union debate
in eastern Canada suggests a broader conception of what constitutes Canada’s
founding debates, and supports the work of other scholars who have identified
an agrarian-commercial cleavage as a defining feature of nineteenth-century
Canadian politics.

Une grande partie de l’historiographie sur l’entrée de la Colombie-Britannique
au sein de la Confédération en 1871 porte sur les motifs qui ont guidé la
population de la Colombie-Britannique à vouloir s’unir au Canada. Cet
article traite du débat entourant les conditions d’adhésion de la province, qui
a eu lieu au Parlement du Canada et dans la presse canadienne de l’Est. Il
reformule la question et la présente comme un conflit entre deux visions contradictoires
de l’avenir économique du Canada. Les partisans de l’adhésion
de la Colombie-Britannique croient que l’accès au Pacifique transformerait le nouveau dominion en une superpuissance commerciale. Quant aux opposants,
ils voient cette Colombie-Britannique éloignée, montagneuse et peu densément
peuplée comme un boulet, une région et une collectivité qui, contrairement à la
Prairie de l’Ouest, ne pourront jamais se conformer à l’idéal agraire que soustend
leur conception du Canada. Un nouvel examen du débat sur les conditions
d’adhésion qui ont eu lieu dans l’Est du Canada mène à une conception élargie
de ce que sont les débats fondateurs du Canada. Cette vision rencontre les
travaux d’autres chercheurs qui confèrent à la division agraire-commerciale un
rôle déterminant de la politique canadienne du XIXe siecle.

L’archéogéographie : un projet d’archéologie du savoir géohistorique

by Magali Watteaux

published in 'Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie', in dossier coord. par M. Watteaux "L'archéogéographie : un état des lieux et de leurs dynamiques", n°125, décembre 2011, p. 3-7.

Archaeogeography : a project of archaeology of the geohistorical knowledge.

Archaeogeography is a... more Archaeogeography : a project of archaeology of the geohistorical knowledge.

Archaeogeography is a discipline which takes more and more importance since about ten years within the disciplines studying the relation between the societies and their territories, in a long-lasting perspective. This article aims to present and put in perspective its history, its matter and its place in the movement of emergence of a vast research field on the organization of the lands and its dynamics. Lastly, it is the occasion to introduce the papers of this file which illustrate each one an aspect of current archeogeographic research.

La colonisation agraire médiévale en Alentejo (Portugal)

by Magali Watteaux

published in 'Etudes Rurales', n°188, juill.-déc. 2011 (published in January 2012).

The medieval agrarian colonisation in Alentejo (Portugal).

The aim of this paper is to highlight the... more The medieval agrarian colonisation in Alentejo (Portugal).

The aim of this paper is to highlight the agrarian planned morphologies during the Middle Ages. The author takes the example of Alentejo, in southern Portugal. There, History offers an ideal context for the analysis of these forms because of the Reconquista and of the process of Repoblación. The historians have studied well the phenomenon of allocation and of redistribution of the parcels of land which takes place within the context of agrarian colonization. But they did not analyze the forms of the parcels which follow from it. This paper, following three ways of research – historical, epistemological and archeogeographical –, shows all the potential of such a subject and contributes to recognize the medieval agrarian planned morphology in a country where it is ignored.

Du plan radio-concentrique au plan radio-quadrillé : relecture archéo-géographique des rapports entre pouvoir et formes du paysage au Moyen Age.

by Magali Watteaux

published in Ph. Rodriguez (ed.), 'Pouvoir et Territoire', actes du colloque de St-Etienne (7-8/11/2005), Publications de l’Université de St-Etienne, St-Etienne, 2007, p. 267-277.

From the radiocentric form to the radiosquarred form : archaeogeographical re-reading of the relations between Power... more From the radiocentric form to the radiosquarred form : archaeogeographical re-reading of the relations between Power and morphology of the landscapes during the Middle Ages.

See also on this subject the paper of 2003 "Le plan radio-quadrillé des terroirs non planifiés"