The next Great Trek? South African commercial farmers move north

This paper analyses the shifting role of South African farmers, agribusiness and capital elsewhere in the Southern African region and the rest of the continent. It explores recent trends in this expansion, and investigates the interests and agendas shaping such deals, and the ideologies and discourses of legitimation employed in favour of them. While for the past two decades small numbers of South African farmers have moved to Mozambique, Zambia and several other countries, this trend seems to be undergoing both a quantitative and a qualitative shift. Whereas in the past their migration was largely individual or in small groups, now it is being more centrally organised and coordinated, is more frequently taking the form of large concessions for newly formed consortia and agribusinesses, and is increasingly reliant on external financing through transnational partnerships. By early 2010, the commercial farmers' association Agri South Africa (AgriSA) was engaged in negotiations for land acquisitions with the governments of 22 African countries. This essay is the product of a scoping study to document and analyse major land acquisitions by South African farmers and agribusinesses, and the processes through which these have occurred and are occurring. It considers the changing character, scale and location of South African investments elsewhere in the region and the continent, and focuses specifically on the AgriSA-Congo deal (the largest deal concluded thus far), and acquisitions by the two South African sugar giants, Illovo and Tongaat-Hulett, for outgrower and estate expansion elsewhere in the region. The study addresses the degree to which South Africa is no longer merely exporting its farmers, but also its value chains, to the rest of the continent – and what this means for trajectories of agrarian change. It questions how we might understand the growing trend of ‘intra-regional land grabbing’ and, in the cases discussed, suggests that South African-based companies are acting as arteries of global capital.     

The expansion of capitalist relations of production in Mexican crafts

Significant changes are occurring in the relations of production and exchange in rural Mexican crafts, with increased merchant control over production constituting one of the more salient aspects of this process. Among the factors stimulating this development are the continuing proletarianisation of the Mexican peasantry and the considerable growth of the tourist market. This article discusses the changes in production relations taking place in the artisan industries of Yucatan and the parallel developments reported elsewhere in Mexico. It is concluded that although retaining certain ‘precapitalist’ features, relations of production in rural artisanty are increasingly determined by the larger capitalist economy.’     

A Tradition of Transgression

A. S. Byatt, Possession, Chatto &; Windus Ltd, London, £13.95     

The Displaced as ‘Ordinary Citizens’: Exploring Variation in the Political Attitudes of the Displaced from Donbas

Abstract

Based on original survey data, this essay analyses the political attitudes of individuals displaced by the war in eastern Ukraine. We systematically compare attitudinal differences and similarities along three axes: the displaced relative to the resident population; the displaced in Ukraine relative to the displaced in Russia; and the displaced from the (non-)government-controlled areas relative to the resident population in the (non-)government-controlled areas of Donbas. This fine-grained comparative analysis highlights the variety of attitudes held by the displaced, similarities in attitudes across displacement locations, and the effect of war casualties on attitudes and self-declared political interest.