The peasants in turmoil: Khmer Rouge,state formation and the control of land in northwest Cambodia

Over the past 15 years, northwest Cambodia has seen dramatic agrarian expansion away from the central rice plain into the peripheral uplands fuelled by peasant in-migration. Against this background, we examine the nature of relations between the peasantry and the state. We first show the historical continuities of land control processes and how the use of violence in a post-conflict neoliberal context has legitimised ex-Khmer Rouge in controlling land distribution. Three case studies show the heterogeneity of local level sovereignties, which engage the peasants in different relations with authority. We examine how these processes result in the construction of different rural territories along the agricultural frontier and argue that, in this region of Cambodia, the struggles between Khmer Rouge and neoliberal modes of land control are central to state formation processes.     

The political economy of sugarcane flexing: initial insights from Brazil,Southern Africa and Cambodia

In the context of rising resource demand, agricultural crops such as sugarcane are being promoted for their multiple uses in different commodity markets and as alternatives to fossil fuel equivalents (i.e. as a source of biofuel, bioelectricity and bioplastic). These commodities are also produced on an increasingly flexible basis, as sugarcane mills respond to price signals and switch between different crop uses. This paper offers a preliminary exploration into the politics of this latest development in the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. It does so by focusing primarily on flexing in Brazil and highlighting the role of the state in both creating markets for non-food products that sugarcane mills can now switch between and managing the tensions that arise from this. These tensions have concerned consumer prices for fuel, control of distribution infrastructure and conditions of land conversion, each prompting political interventions by the state. The paper then suggests how this same process is taking place, albeit shaped by different contexts, in Southern Africa and Cambodia. It concludes with some key questions for further research: is flexing eroding the distinction between crop regimes? How do primary processors decide what their product mix will be? And on what basis do state actors support flexing between agricultural products and investments in so-called bio-refineries?     

The role of debt,death and dispossession in world-ecological transformations: swidden commons and tar capitalism in nineteenth-century Finland

ABSTRACT

This article theorises about the ways in which commodity frontiers replace forest commons. New insights are offered into the role of debt, enclosures, the death of human and extra-human natures, and the role of the state in historical processes through an analysis of historical material and recent scholarship on eastern Finland's role in global capitalist expansion in the nineteenth century. The article contributes to the general study of commons and the expansion of capitalist world-ecology. We discuss how swidden commons were more sustainable than generally assumed. The article provides an original theoretical framework for studying world-ecological transformations. We argue that a study of debt, death and dispossession – which we call the three work-horses of tar capitalism – can shed new light on the expansion of commodity frontiers.     

Tourism and the politics of the global land grab in Tanzania: markets,appropriation and recognition

This paper examines how tourism as a form of land use and economic development is a critical site of struggle over the meaning of neoliberalism, landscape and land rights in northern Tanzania. I examine two tourism arrangements in Loliondo: joint ventures between expatriate-owned ecotourism companies and predominately Maasai villages; and the leasing of a hunting concession on village lands by the central government to a powerful foreign investor from the United Arab Emirates. Despite the fundamental role of foreign investors in appropriating resources and surplus value from regional landscapes in each of these cases, I argue that the Maasai in Loliondo see contemporary land grabbing as firmly situated in state claims to property and territory. The Maasai in Loliondo have come to think of the market, expressed through their direct relationships with ecotourism investors, as the most promising space to legitimize and secure land rights and access to resources. Loliondo, an area in northern Tanzania bordering the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, has become one of the most important sites for tourism development in Tanzania. This region is home to the iconic Maasai people, who practice pastoralism and are part of what attracts tourists to Tanzania. These Maasai face increased pressure to assert their local vision of a landscape and their ability to commoditize it. I situate current land struggles within the political economy of tourism in Loliondo and show how different articulations of market–state–community become both materially and symbolically meaningful. Ultimately, I argue that the Maasai retain faith in market-based relationships in spite of increasingly limited room to maneuver.