A response to comments on a review article on agrarian movements in Bihar,India

This rejoinder refutes the assertions made by Dr Sengupta in his comments (The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.12, No. 4, July 1985) on my review article on the Special Issue on ‘Agrarian Movements in Bihar’. It also argues that by failing to address squarely the issues raised in the review article, Dr Sengupta has conceded that the criticisms made are well founded.     

Agrarian structures and recent rural movements in Portugal

This paper has been conceived in two distinct parts. In the first, I will analyse the main changes which have occurred within the Portuguese agrarian structures over the past 25 years. I will rely for that purpose on an examination of the otherwise poor data provided by the Population Censuses of 1950,1960 and 1970, and by the Agricultural Surveys of 1952–54 and 1968; I will also mention briefly some changes in the productive structures, along with a constant reference to the massive rural emigration from the late 1950s onwards; finally, in the course of these analyses, I will try to clarify some theoretical points related to the ways in which I see the incorporation of agriculture into capitalism taking place. The picture which will come out of this first part provides the background against which a variety of social movements occurred in the rural areas of Portugal after the overthrow of the dictatorship by the Army in 25 April 1974; the analysis of these movements is the purpose of the second part of the paper, to which I will add a brief conclusion.     

Land reform and Agrarian change in India and Pakistan since 1947: 1

Analysing the class character of land reform in India and Pakistan the author makes a distinction between ideology and programme. Judged by its ideology, land reform in India is sharply anti‐landlord and pro‐peasant and is thus a mobiliser of peasant support for the ruling elite. The programme of land reform, however, serves primarily the interests of an emerging intermediate class of under‐proprietors and big peasants. This intermediate class makes a joint front with the rural poor to curb the privileges of landlords. But it makes a common cause with the landlords to thwart any prospect of agrarian radicalism turning into a pro‐poor agrarian programme. In Pakistan the conflict between the old landlords and the emerging intermediate class is not as sharply articulated as in India and land policy therefore had a more pronounced pro‐landlord bias than was the case in India. In Pakistan at best it denotes the tension between the old moribund and a new dynamic landlord class.?     

Becoming a Naxalite in rural Bihar: Class struggle and its contradictions

Ever since its inception during the 1960s, the Naxalite movement in India has been the focus of scholarly interest and political analysis. In spite of internal splits and external repression by the state, this agrarian mobilization continues to gain ground in Bihar and elsewhere. Both achievements and contradictions of such Maoist-inspired agency and ideology are examined via the life story of a Naxalite – an organic intellectual – from the Dalit community. Of particular interest are the difficulties of having to protect family members, as well as positive developments, such as shifts in the language of struggle (from caste to class), and negative ones at the level of political consciousness (the persistence of traditional beliefs, receipt of pro-poor funding from the state).     

Introduction: Rethinking Agrarian Labor in the US South

This special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies seeks to broaden discussion of the history of rural labor in the post-Civil War US South beyond the confines of the cotton plantation, studies of sharecropping, and black-white race relations. This introduction summarizes the contributions to the special issue, highlighting their most significant points. Collectively, five interrelated issues emerge from the essays: the role of the state in mediating agrarian labor relations, the importance of paramilitary or vigilante violence in the reassertion of the social power wielded over rural laborers, the significance of access to land and other resources of rural self-sufficiency, the ongoing struggle over labor mobility, and the recomposition of agrarian households as units of production.     

Things Fall Apart: The Cinematic Rendition of Agrarian Landscape in South India

This article explores the transitional decade of the 1970s in the history of the southwestern state of Kerala, India, through the films and novels of M.T. Vasudevan Nair, arguably the most important litterateur in Kerala today. After the historic election of a Communist ministry to power in 1957, Kerala then stepped gingerly back from a radical politics and moved towards a restitution of an older masculine, agrarian order. By looking at the shifts in politics and the social order simultaneously with the progression of Vasudevan Nair's own filmic sensibility, the article raises the question of whether historical time and filmic time can be easily mapped on to each other.     

From Rice to Prawns: Economic Transformation and Agrarian Structure in Rural Bangladesh

This article investigates the changes in agrarian structure brought about by the development of export-oriented freshwater prawn cultivation in south-western Bangladesh. Prawn farming in this particular context has spread among agricultural producers so rapidly within the last decade that many of the agrarian institutions have been carried over or been adapted to the new production regime. Thus the institutions governing landholdings and contractual labour arrangements involved in prawn farming have many things in common with those involved in rice production. While landholders generally have benefited from the new prawn economy, it is difficult to say whether the position of landless men and women from poor households has improved on a sustainable basis. Thus the employment gains of local male workers are currently under threat from cheaper migrants, while new jobs for women from poor households are highly intensive, potentially hazardous, and poorly paid.     

Agrarian class structure in Nicaragua in 1980: A new interpretation and some implications

The processing and analysis of a family rural survey which covered more than 50,000 families is used to reinterpret Nicaraguan agrarian class structure in 1980, the starting point of the agrarian reform. The author contrasts his results with those of a prior processing and the conclusions of other analysts. The article concludes by considering the implications of the work for present agrarian class structure and for social and economic policies in agriculture, particularly those affecting the middle peasantry.     

Agroecology as a territory in dispute: between institutionality and social movements

Agroecology is in fashion, and now constitutes a territory in dispute between social movements and institutionality. This new conjuncture offers a constellation of opportunities that social movements can avail themselves of to promote changes in the food system. Yet there is an enormous risk that agroecology will be co-opted, institutionalized, colonized and stripped of its political content. In this paper, we analyze this quandary in terms of political ecology: will agroecology end up as merely offering a few more tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture, to fine tune an agribusiness system that is being restructured in the midst of a civilizational crisis or, alternatively, will it be strengthened as a politically mobilizing option for building alternatives to development? We interpret the contemporary dispute over agroecology through the lenses of contested material and immaterial territories, political ecology, and the first and second contradictions of capital.     

Reflections on Peasant Adaptation in Rural Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: The Stolypin Agrarian Reforms

The Stolypin reforms in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century are usually understood as a revolutionary attempt to destroy the peasantry and peasant culture through legal coercion; in fact, they were a more moderate attempt to encourage change through voluntary procedures. In terms of both the numbers of peasants embracing them and their social impact, the reforms were also more successful than has traditionally been acknowledged. A key reason for their success was the synergistic relationship between the reform process and the deepening marketization of rural and urban economic environments in conjunction with the peasants' increasing willingness to adapt to and take advantage of the new opportunities these processes created. The reforms' positive outcomes contrast sharply with the results of current reforms in Russia and highlight the critical role of market supporting institutions in creating a supportive environment.     

Agrarian transition in former Soviet Central Asia: A comparative study of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan

While analysing in detail the agrarian transition that is taking place in two former Soviet Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan (concentrating on agrarian reform, deregulation and financial institutions), the crude classifications that are normally used as framework, such as ‘slow’ versus ‘fast’ reforms or ‘gradualism’ versus ‘shock‐therapy’ are seen as not very useful. These transitions are highly complex and diverse, and therefore any analysis and policy design must be based on a real understanding of the institutional setting of the agrarian sector. It is concluded that agrarian markets are not spontaneously appearing, and that there is an important role for the state to promote ‘the construction of markets’.     

对中国企业实施"走出去"战略主要观点的评析

近年来,我国企业实施“走出去”战略具有必要性和可能性。应当加强对实施主体、实施对象以及怎样实施等相关问题在理论上进行有针对性的分析。     

A hidden and complex heritage: Reflections on the history of Germany's women's movements

This paper examines the conditions of early feminism in Germany, the differing attitudes and strategies adopted by early feminists, characterizations of the movement in historical accounts and the relationship of contemporary feminism in Germany to its earlier manifestation. The conclusion reached is that our feminist heritage is a hidden and complex one and can only be understood fully if the ‘underside’ is examined ‘from below’.