The land exclusion dilemma and Sumatra’s agrarian reactionaries

Even as millions of rural workers have organized into agrarian movements, their efforts to benefit from progressive social mobilizations often fail. To understand how agrarian movements can overcome these difficulties, this contribution acknowledges a dilemma: As agrarian movement members create ties to land they necessarily confront new forms of exclusion. We discuss this exclusionary land dilemma, with a focus on Sumatra’s agrarian reactionaries as an elite class possessing a potent exclusionary force that seeks to erase agrarian movement legitimacy and block rural workers’ mobilizations to reclaim and occupy land. We trace these agrarian reactionaries’ public life across a state–corporate–criminal apparatus and their repression of two agrarian movement mobilizations. We find agrarian reactionaries’ actions offer a partial explanation for the still-limited gains of Sumatra’s rural workers’ movements. Agrarian reactionaries legitimize their exclusions with nativist, ethno-territorial ideas that co-opt indigenous rights claims. In response, laborers and agriculturalists are now refining a more inclusive land politics – one of greater unifying influence that does not depend upon claims of indigeneity – to overcome reactionary repression.     

Output,surpluses and ‘stressed commerce’: a study on farm viability and agrarian transition in West Bengal,India, in the new millennium

This paper intends to evaluate at the farm level, in the current millennium, the nature of surpluses and the emerging exchange processes in agrarian West Bengal through the lenses of socio-economic class differentiation. The paper concentrates on the structure and pattern of gross value added, farm labour and farm-disposable surplus that accrue to the peasants along with their repercussions on farm viability. Finally, it addresses the consequences of stressed commerce (carried out through price shocks) on the ratio of retention of surplus at the farm level as a larger question of farm viability, agrarian transition and conflicts. The study emphasises the region with higher capitalistic¹ development. The change in this region is found to be more significant in the context of agrarian transition. The same analysis is also followed for the more backward region, but just to put forward the distinction between the processes working in the two regions.     

Book reviews

During the past two decades agrarian (‘land and farm’) reforms have been widespread in the transition economies of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), following earlier ones in Asia (China and Vietnam). However, independent family farms did not become the predominant sector in most of Eastern Europe. A new dual (or bi-modal) agrarian structure emerged, consisting of large farm enterprises (with much less social functions than they had before), and very small peasant farms or subsidiary plots. The paper compares five case studies, looking at agrarian actors, property rights, state influence, and rural poverty. These are Russia, Armenia, Moldova and Uzbekistan in the EECCA region, and China's Xinjiang province in Asia. The paper concludes that state influence is still substantial, property rights regimes are quite diverse and rural poverty remains medium to high. State-led agrarian reform, in particular where a redistributive (or restitution-based) land reform was implemented led in some cases to land-based wealth redistribution, but policies and institutions were lacking to support the individual farm sector. More often the outcome was a rapid transfer of land in the hands of corporate farm enterprises, reversing the initial process of ‘re-peasantization’. It seems that the old ‘Soviet dream’ of mega-farm enterprises in the ‘transition to capitalism’ has regained prominence, with huge agro-holdings ‘calling the shots’, providing an insecure future for agricultural workers, peasants and farmers.     

Soybean agri-food systems dynamics and the diversity of farming styles on the agricultural frontier in Mato Grosso,Brazil

Soybean production in South America has become a symbol of commodity crops produced on a large scale for the agribusiness geared to global markets. However, in practice, there are diverse styles of farming, ranging from the very large scale to the small scale, associated with different social relations of production. This diversity of farm types is often overlooked within the focus on the stereotypical large-scale farm. Any understanding of the social dynamics of relations of production and farming practices, and so insights into longer term trajectories of agrarian change, must also go beyond a simplistic dichotomous vision of large-scale versus small-scale farming.     

A tribute to Willem Assies (1954–2010): reflections on his contribution to peasant and indigenous studies

This article discusses the manifold contributions of Willem Assies to the social sciences and Latin American studies. It focuses on his writings on agrarian and peasant studies, social movements, and indigenous peoples. In particular, he made important contributions to our understanding of multicultural citizenship, the multiethnic state, and plurinational democracy. His writings had a major impact on those working on rural and indigenous peoples' issues, although the Dutch academic establishment largely failed to appreciate his exceptional talents. It is argued in this article that he never wavered from his early recognition of the importance of class in social analysis, while acknowledging its limitations. In his view, one of the central challenges facing the indigenous peoples' social movements was how to link indigenous issues to general national problems. To what extent had they met this challenge? His premature death prevented him from exploring this key issue further, but hopefully other scholars will take up the baton and continue to debate his ideas.     

Reply to ‘The politics of evidence: a response to Rulli and D'Odorico’

ABSTRACT

Indicators of carbon storage in forests and other land uses have gained much prominence to evaluate and endorse land-based climate change mitigation policies. The outcomes of such assessments can have direct livelihood implications for dwellers living at the forest–agriculture frontier, such as shifting cultivators or subsistence farmers. This contribution critically discusses the methodological relevance of carbon stock indicators to assess long-term emission dynamics of land uses, and furthermore addresses the ‘politics of measurement’ that can be involved in policy practice. From a complex socio-ecological systems perspective, the paper argues that carbon stock indicators provide necessary but not sufficient information to endorse land use policies with mitigation aims. While they may indicate one-off sequestration gains through vegetation and land-use change, they cannot account for permanent hidden emissions that emerge as part of the broader agrarian transitions that accompany land-use change. Over the long term, this may render related mitigation interventions ineffective, if not counterproductive. Furthermore, carbon stock estimates for future land-use scenarios sometimes draw on biased assumptions, or are constructed within histories of discrimination, through which they may further marginalize subaltern groups such as shifting cultivators. A paradigm shift is needed that includes more integrative assessment approaches.     

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Contradictions between impressive levels of economic growth and the persistence of poverty and inequality are perhaps nowhere more evident than in rural Brazil. While Brazil might appear to be an example of the potential harmony between large-scale, export-oriented agribusiness and small-scale family farming, high levels of rural resistance contradict this vision. In this introductory paper, we synthesize the literature on agrarian resistance in Brazil and situate recent struggles in Brazil within the Latin American context more broadly. We highlight seven key characteristics of contemporary Latin American resistance, which include: the growth of international networks, the changing structure of state–society collaboration, the deepening of territorial claims, the importance of autonomy, the development of alternative economies, continued opposition to dispossession, and struggles over the meaning of nature. We argue that by analyzing rural mobilization in Brazil, this collection offers a range of insights relevant to rural contention globally. Each contribution in this collection increases our understanding of alternative agricultural production, large-scale development projects, education, race and political parties in the contemporary agrarian context.     

Patterns of agrarian transformation in Ethiopia: State-mediated commercialisation and the ‘land grab’

Much of the literature on the ‘land grab’ has thus far focused on the international drivers of foreign agricultural investment, with far less attention paid to the roles of developing country states and domestic political economy in changing forms of agrarian production. This paper analyses how global and domestic processes combine to produce patterns of agrarian transformation in Ethiopia, one of the main targets of foreign agricultural investment. The paper presents a typology of changes in land use and examines in detail three case studies of investments in Ethiopia drawn from this typology. The paper concludes that the most dramatic changes are taking place in lowland, peripheral regions where large-scale, capital-intensive farms employing wage labour pose a serious risk to pastoralists whose ‘use’ of land is contested by the state. Although the government has been careful to avoid mass displacement of settled smallholders, there are also important changes taking place in highland areas, with the government encouraging investments that combine the resources of investors with the labour and land of smallholders. These investments have resulted in exposure to new forms of market risk.