Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question PDF
Preview Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question
Peasants and Globalization In 2007, for the first time in human history, amajorityof theworld’spopulation livedincities.However,onaglobalscale,povertyoverwhelminglyretainsaruralface. This book assembles a group of internationally eminent scholars in the field of rural development and social change in order to explore historical and con- temporary processes of agrarian transformation and its consequent impact on livelihoods, poverty and wellbeing. After examining the agrarian origins of capitalism in Europe, the impact of colonialism on rural change in colonized countries,andprocessesofagrariantransformationthroughthetwentiethcentury untilthepresent,thisbookoffersanumberofchallengingperspectivesontheextent to which contemporary international capitalism, neoliberal globalization, and transformationsintheworldfoodsystemhaveaffectedthecapacityofdeveloping andtransitioncountriestofacilitatesustainableruraldevelopmentthroughegalitarian agrarianchangeandpovertyeradicationinthecountryside.Thebookprovidesa criticalanalysisoftheextenttowhichruraldevelopmenttrajectorieshaveinthepast promoted, and are now promoting, a reconfiguration of rural production pro- cesses,theaccumulationofruralresourcesandshiftsinruralpolitics–andofthe implicationsofsuchtrajectoriesforpeasantlivelihoodsinaneraofglobalization. Peasants and Globalization explores continuity and change in the debate on the ‘agrarian question’, from its early formulation in the late nineteenth century to the continuing relevance it has in our times. Collectively, the contributors argue that in deepening the market imperative governing contemporary agri- culture,neoliberalsocialandeconomicpoliciesnotonlyhavefailedtotacklethe underlying causes of rural poverty, but also have deepened the agrarian crisis currently confronting the livelihoods of peasant farmers and rural workers around the world. This crisis does not go unchallenged, as rural social move- ments have emerged, for the first time, on a transnational scale. Confronting developmentpoliciesthatareunabletoreduce,letaloneeliminate,ruralpoverty, transnational rural social movements are attempting to construct a more just future for the world’s farmers and rural workers. A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada. Cristóbal Kay is Professor of Development Studies and Rural Development at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, the Netherlands. Routledge ISS Studies in Rural Livelihoods Editorial Board: A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi (Trent University), Saturnino M. Borras, Jr (Saint Mary’s University), Cristóbal Kay (Chair) (Institute of Social Studies) and Max Spoor (Institute of Social Studies) Routledge and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, the Netherlands have come together to publish a series of books on key issues confronting contemporary rural livelihoods in developing and transition countries. The series will include volumes critically covering themes includ- ing rural poverty, agrarian transformation, land policies and land rights, foodpolicyandpolitics,waterissues,migration,ruralsocialmovements,and rural conflict and violence, amongst others. All books in the series offer rig- orous, evidence-based, cross-national comparative and inter-regional analy- sis.Thebooksaredesigned to be theoreticallystimulating butalso accessible to policy practitioners and civil society activists. 1 Land, Poverty and Livelihoods in an Era of Globalization Perspectives from developing and transition countries Edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Saturnino M. Borras, Jr and Cristóbal Kay 2. Peasants and Globalization Political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question Edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristóbal Kay Peasants and Globalization Political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question Edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristóbal Kay Firstpublished2009 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada byRoutledge 270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©2009selectionandeditorialmatter: A.HaroonAkram-Lodhiand CristóbalKay;individualchapters,thecontributors TypesetinTimesNewRoman byTaylor&FrancisBooks PrintedandboundinGreatBritainby BiddlesLtd,King’sLynn Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproduced orutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans, nowknownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording, orinanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissionin writingfromthepublishers. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Peasantsandglobalization:politicaleconomy,ruraltransformationand theagrarianquestion/editedbyA.HaroonAkram-LodhiandCristóbal Kay. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. 1.Ruraldevelopment–Casestudies.2.Peasants–Casestudies.3. Globalization–Casestudies.I.Akram-Lodhi,A.Haroon,1958-II.Kay, Cristóbal. HN49.C6P4352008 307.1’412–dc22 2008008935 ISBN978-0-415-44629-7(hbk) ISBN978-0-203-89183-4(ebk) Contents List of contributors vii Preface x List of abbreviations and acronyms xii PART1 Peasant Livelihoods and the Agrarian Question 1 1 The agrarian question: peasants and rural change 3 A.HAROONAKRAM-LODHIANDCRISTÓBALKAY PART2 Historical Perspectives on Agrarian Change 35 2 Peasants and the market imperative: the origins of capitalism 37 ELLENMEIKSINSWOOD 3 The landlord class, peasant differentiation, class struggle and the transition to capitalism: England, France and Prussia compared 57 TERENCEJ.BYRES 4 Nineteenth century imperialism and structural transformation in colonized countries 83 AMIYAKUMARBAGCHI 5 The invisible hand and the visible foot: peasants, dispossession and globalization 111 FARSHADARAGHI 6 Peasant struggles for land and agrarian reform in Latin America 148 MIGUELTEUBAL vi Contents PART3 Contemporary Perspectives on Agrarian Change 167 7 The globalization of manufacturing production: Warrenite fantasies and uneven and unequal realities 169 RAYKIELY 8 Gender justice, land and the agrarian question in Southern Africa 190 BRIDGETO’LAUGHLIN 9 The political economyof land and the agrarian question in an era of neoliberal globalization 214 A.HAROONAKRAM-LODHI,CRISTÓBALKAY ANDSATURNINOM.BORRAS,JR 10 Agrarian questions from transition to globalization 239 HENRYBERNSTEIN 11 The Southern question: agrarian questions of labour and capital 262 MICHAELJ.WATTS 12 Food sovereignty, social reproduction and the agrarian question 288 PHILIPMCMICHAEL PART4 The Agrarian Question, Past and Present 313 13 Neoliberal globalization, the traits of rural accumulation and rural politics: the agrarian question in the twenty-first century 315 A.HAROONAKRAM-LODHIANDCRISTÓBALKAY Index 339 Contributors A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of International Development Studies at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada and has recently co-edited Land, Poverty and Livelihoods: Perspectives from Developing and Transition Countries and Globalization, Neo-Conservative Policies and Democratic Alternatives: Essays in Honour of John Loxley. His principal research interest is in the political economy of agrarian change, including its gender dimensions. Farshad Araghi is Chairof the Department of Sociology and Directorof the Graduate Program at Florida Atlantic University. He is a co-editorof the International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. His principal research interests are globalization, world-historical methodology and the political economy of agrarian change, and his work on global depea- santization relates peasant studies, food regime analysis, land reform and world-historical sociology. He is currently completing abookon peasants and the global enclosures of our times. His article ‘Food regimes and the production of value: some methodological issues’, published in the Journal of Peasant Studies, won the Eric Wolf Prize. Amiya Kumar Bagchi is Director and Secretary of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, India and is perhaps best known for The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, Capital and Labour Re-defined: India and the Third World and The Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital. Henry Bernstein is Professor of Development Studies in the University of London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, UK. In addi- tion to being former co-editor of the Journal of Agrarian Change and the Journal of Peasant Studies, he has co-authored African Enclosures? The Social Dynamics of Wetlands in Drylands, edited The Agrarian Question in South Africa, and co-edited Rural Livelihoods: Crises and Responses. viii Contributors Saturnino M. Borras, Jr is Canada Research Chair in International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada. His most recent books are Pro-Poor Land Reform: A Critique and On Just Grounds: Struggling for Agrarian Justice and Citizenship Rights in the Rural Philippines, co-edited with Jennifer Franco. His current research interests include transnational agrarian movements and redistributive reform in ‘non-private lands’. Terence J. Byres is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy in the University of London, and Emeritus Editor of the Journal of Agrarian Change. His earlier writing was on agrarian change in India. His last book, Capitalism From Above and Capitalism From Below, was a com- parison of capitalist agrarian transition in Prussia and the USA. He is currently working on the relationships, in the eighteenth century, between the capitalist transformation of Scotland and the Scottish Enlightenment. Cristóbal Kay is Professor of Development Studies and Rural Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, the Netherlands. He has co-edited Disappearing Peasantries? Rural Labour in Africa, Asia and Latin America, co-authored Latin America Transformed: Globalization and Modernity, and written Latin American Theories of Development and Underdevelopment. Ray Kiely is Professor of International Politics in the University of London at Queen Mary College. His principal research interests are in interna- tional political economy, globalization, imperialism and social theory. Among his publications, his most recent books are The New Political Economy of Development and Empire in the Age of Globalisation: US Hegemony and Neo-Liberal Disorder. Philip McMichael is Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University. He has written Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, which is in its fourth edition, has edited Food and Agrarian Orders in the World-Economyand The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems, and has co-edited New Directions in the Sociology of Global Development. In addition, he has written Settlers and the Agrarian Question: Foundations of Capitalism in Colonial Australia. His current projects centre on the politics of globalization, including institutional changes in the global order and globalization counter-movements. BridgetO’LaughlinisAssociateProfessorofPopulationandDevelopmentat the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, the Netherlands, is a co- editor of Development and Change, and has published extensively in journals such as the Journal of Southern African Studies, African Affairs and the Journal of Peasant Studies. She is currently researching the Contributors ix gendered impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on rural livelihoods in Southern Africa. Miguel Teubal is Professor of Economics at the University of Buenos Aires and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research, known as CONICET. He has published widely on the political economy of food, agriculture and poverty in Latin America and Argentina.Someofhisrecentpublicationsinclude‘Expansióndelmodelo sojero en la Argentina: de la producción de alimentos a los commodities’ and ‘Tierra y reforma agraria en América Latina’, and he co-edited Agro y Alimentos en la Globalización: Una Perspective Crítica. Michael J. Watts is Professorof Geography and Directorof African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He is author of an extensive array of articles and chapters, and is currently working on two books, on the history of oil in the Niger Delta and the history of postwar US capitalism seen through the poultry sector. His concern with the agrarian question extends backover 30 years. Ellen Meiksins Wood was for many years Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, Canada. Her books include The Pristine Culture of Capitalism, Peasant-Citizen and Slave, Empire of Capital, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, and The Retreat from Class, which won the Deutscher Prize.
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