Download or read book Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies written by Akram-Lodhi, A. H. and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the emerging and vibrant field of critical agrarian studies, this comprehensive Handbook offers interdisciplinary insights from both leading scholars and activists to understand agrarian life, livelihoods, formations and processes of change. It highlights the development of the field, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism and innovation.

Download or read book The Violent Technologies of Extraction written by Alexander Dunlap and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a thought provoking theoretical conversation around ecological crisis and natural resource extraction, this book suggests that we are on a trajectory geared towards total extractivism guided by the mythological Worldeater. The authors discuss why and how we have come to live in this catastrophic predicament, rooting the present in an original perspective that animates the forces of global techno-capitalist development. They argue that the Worldeater helps us make sense of the insatiable forces that transform, convert and consume the world. The book combines this unique approach with detailed academic review of critical agrarian studies and political ecology, the militarization of nature and the conventional and ‘green’ extraction nexus. It seeks radical reflection on the role people play in the construction and perpetuation of these crises, and concludes with some suggestions on how to tackle them.

Download or read book Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change written by Henry Bernstein and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry Bernstein argues that class dynamics should be the starting point of any analysis of agrarian change. Providing an accessible introduction to agrarian political economy, he shows clearly how the argument for "bringing class back in" provides an alternative to inherited conceptions of the agrarian question. He also ably illustrates what is at stake in different ways of thinking about class dynamics and the effects of agrarian change in today's globalized world. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Political Economy of Agrarian Change. Production and Productivity. Origins of Early Development of Capitalism. Colonialism and Capitalism. Farming and Agriculture, Local and Global. Neoliberal Globalization and World Agriculture. Capitalist Agriculture and Non-Capitalist Farmers? Class Formation in the Countryside. Complexities of Class.

Download or read book Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World written by Ian Scoones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of authoritarian, nationalist forms of populism and the implications for rural actors and settings is one of the most crucial foci for critical agrarian studies today, with many consequences for political action. Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World reflects on the rural origins and consequences of the emergence of authoritarian and populist leaders across the world, as well as on the rise of multi-class mobilisation and resistance, alongside wider counter-movements and alternative practices, which together confront authoritarianism and nationalist populism. The book includes 20 chapters written by contributors to the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), a global network of academics and activists committed to both reflective analysis and political engagement. Debates about ‘populism’, ‘nationalism’, ‘authoritarianism’ and more have exploded recently, but relatively little of this has focused on the rural dimensions. Yet, wherever one looks, the rural aspects are key – not just in electoral calculus, but in understanding underlying drivers of authoritarianism and populism, and potential counter-movements to these. Whether because of land grabs, voracious extractivism, infrastructural neglect or lack of services, rural peoples’ disillusionment with the status quo has had deeply troubling consequences and occasionally hopeful ones, as the chapters in this book show. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Critical Perspectives in Rural Development Studies written by Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agrarian transformations within and across countries have been significantly and dynamically altered during the past few decades compared to previous eras, provoking a variety of reactions from rural poor communities worldwide. The recent convergence of various crises – financial, food, energy and environmental – has put the nexus between ‘rural development’ and ‘development in general’ back onto the center stage of theoretical, policy and political agendas in the world today. Confronting these issues will require (re)engaging with critical theories, taking politics seriously, and utilizing rigorous and appropriate research methodologies. These are the common messages and implications of the various contributions to this collection in the context of a scholarship that is critical in two senses: questioning prescriptions from mainstream perspectives and interrogating popular conventions in radical thinking. This book focuses on key perspectives, frameworks and methodologies in agrarian change and peasant studies. The contributors are leading scholars in the field of rural development studies: Henry Bernstein, Terence J. Byres, Saturnino M. Borras Jr, Marc Edelman, Cristóbal Kay, Benedict Kerkvliet, Philip McMichael, Shahra Razavi, Ian Scoones and Teodor Shanin. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Agrarian Transition written by B. B. Mohanty and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book evaluates the relevance of classical debates on agrarian transition and extends the horizon of contemporary debates in the Indian context, linking national trends with regional experiences. It identifies new dynamics in agrarian political economy and presents a comprehensive account of diverse aspects of capitalist transition both at theoretical and empirical levels. The essays discuss several neglected domains in agricultural economics such as discursive dimensions of agrarian relations and limitations of stereotypical binaries between capital and non-capital, rural and urban sectors, agriculture and industry, and accumulation and subsistence. With contributions from major scholars in the field, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of agriculture, economics, political economy, sociology, rural development and development studies.

Download or read book Agrarian Marxism written by Michael Levien and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume advances heterodox reconstructions of agrarian Marxism on the occasion of Marx’s 200th birth anniversary. While Marxists have long criticized ‘populists’ for ignoring capitalism and class, populists have charged Marxists with historical determinism. This ongoing debate has now reached something of an impasse, in part because new empirical work addressing the complex contemporary patterns and conjunctures of global agrarian capitalism offers exciting new horizons, along with new and generative theoretical reconstructions of Marxism itself. This book helps to point the way beyond this impasse, and illustrates that agrarian Marxism remains a dynamic theoretical program that offers powerful insights into agrarian change and politics in the twenty-first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Green Grabbing A New Appropriation of Nature written by James Fairhead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the world, ecosystems are for sale. ‘Green grabbing’ – the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends – is an emerging process of deep and growing significance. A vigorous debate on ‘land grabbing’ already highlights instances where ‘green’ credentials are called upon to justify appropriations of land for food or fuel. Yet in other cases, environmental green agendas are the core drivers and goals of grabs. Green grabs may be drivn by biodiversity conservation, biocarbon sequestration, biofuels, ecosystem services or ecotourism, for example. In some cases theyse agendas involve the wholesale alienation of land, and in others the restructuring of rules and authority in the access, use and management of resources that may have profoundly alienating effects. Green grabbing builds on well-known histories of colonial and neo-colonial resource alienation in the name of the environment. Yet it involves novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets for pieces and aspects of nature, and an extraordinary new range of actors and alliances. This book draws together seventeen original cases from African, Asian and Latin American settings to ask: To what extent and in what ways do ‘green grabs’ constitute new forms of appropriation of nature? What political and discursive dynamics underpin ‘green grabs’? How and when do appropriations on the ground emerge out of circulations of green capital? What are the implications for ecologies, landscapes and livelihoods? Who is gaining and who is losing? How are agrarian social relations, rights and authority being restructured, and in whose interests? This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty written by Marc Edelman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a pioneering contribution to the study of food politics and critical agrarian studies, where food sovereignty has emerged as a pivotal concept over the past few decades, with a wide variety of social movements, on-the-ground experiments, and policy innovations flying under its broad banner. Despite its large and growing popularity, the history, theoretical foundations, and political program of food sovereignty have only occasionally received in-depth analysis and critical scrutiny. This collection brings together both longstanding scholars in critical agrarian studies, such as Philip McMichael, Bina Agarwal, Henry Bernstein, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, and Marc Edelman, as well as a dynamic roster of early- and mid-career researchers. The ultimate aim is to advance this important frontier of research and organizing, and put food sovereignty on stronger footing as a mobilizing frame, a policy objective, and a plan of action for the human future. This volume was published as part one of the special double issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Agrarian Extractivism in Latin America written by Ben M. McKay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-30 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the growing calls for a turn towards sustainable agriculture, this book puts forth and discusses the concept of agrarian extractivism to help us identify and expose the predatory extractivist features of dominant agricultural development models. The concept goes beyond the more apparent features of monocultures and raw material exports to examine the inherent logic and underlying workings of a model based on the appropriation of an ever-growing range of commodified and non-commodified human and non-human nature in an extractivist fashion. Such a process erodes the autonomy of resourcedependent working people, dispossesses the rural poor, exhausts and expropriates nature, and concentrates value in a few hands as a result of the unquenchable drive for profit by big business. In many instances, such extractivist dynamics are subsidized and/or directly supported by the state, while also dependent on the unpaid, productive, and reproductive labour of women, children, and elders, exacerbating unequal class, gender, and generational relations. Rather than a one-size-fits-all definition of agrarian extractivism, this collection points to the diversity of extractivist features of corporate-led, external-input-dependent plantation agriculture across distinct socio-ecological formations in Latin America. This timely challenge to the destructive dominant models of agricultural development will interest scholars, activists, researchers, and students from across the fields of critical development studies, rural studies, environmental and sustainability studies, and Latin American studies, among others.

Download or read book Agrarian Dreams written by Julie Guthman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-04 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.

Download or read book Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa written by Habib Ayeb and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa’ studies the political economy of agrarian transformation in the eponymous regions. Examining Egypt and Tunisia in detail as case studies, it critiques the dominant tropes of food security offered by the international financial institutions and promotes the importance of small-scale family farming in developing sustainable food sovereignty. Egypt and Tunisia are located in the context of the broader Middle East and broader processes of war, environmental transformation and economic reform. The book contributes to uncovering the historical backdrop and contemporary pressures in the Middle East and North Africa for the uprisings of 2010 and 2011. It also explores the continued failure of post-uprising counter-revolutionary governments to directly address issues of rural development that put the position and role of small farmers centre stage.

Download or read book New Frontiers of Land Control written by Nancy Lee Peluso and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions about land control have invigorated thinkers in agrarian studies and economic history since the nineteenth century. ‘Exclusion’, ‘alienation’, ‘expropriation’, ‘dispossession’, and ‘violence’ animate histories of land use, property rights, and territories. More recently, agrarian environments have been transformed by processes of de-agrarianization, urbanization, migration, and new forms of primitive accumulation. Even the classic agrarian question of how the social relations of agriculture will be influenced by capitalism has been reformulated at critical historical moments, reviving or producing new debates around the importance of land control. The authors in this volume focus on new frontiers of land control and their active creation. These frontiers are sites where established power relationships are challenged by new enclosures and property regimes, producing new social and environmental dynamics in their stead. Contributors examine labor and production processes engaged by new configurations of actors, new agrarian and environmental subjects and the networks connecting them, and new legal and violent means of challenging established or imminent land controls. Overall we find that land control still matters, though in changed degrees and manners. Land control will continue to inspire struggles for a long time. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies written by Henry Veltmeyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies provides an up-to-date and authoritative introduction to the field, challenging mainstream development discourse and the assumptions that underlie it. Critical development studies lays bare the economic, political, social, and environmental crises that characterise the current global capitalist system, proposing instead systemic change and different pathways for moving beyond capitalism into a new world of genuine progress where economic and social justice and ecological integrity prevail. In this book, the authors challenge market-driven, neoliberal development agendas, incorporating analyses of class, gender, race, and the dynamics of uneven capitalist development. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition includes: • 18 new chapters, including on topics such as philanthrocapitalism, race, the energy transition, Indigenous resistance and resilience, and global health • Expanded global coverage, including new chapters on South Africa, North Africa, and the Gulf Arab states • A new section on resistance and alternatives • Additional pedagogical features, including a glossary of key terms, discussion questions, and expanded guides for further reading. This textbook will be essential reading for students of global development, political science, sociology, economics, gender studies, geography, history, anthropology, agrarian studies, international political economy, and area studies. It will also be an important resource for development researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Download or read book Farmers Subalterns and Activists written by Trent Brown and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In theory, chemical-free sustainable agriculture not only has ecological benefits, but also social and economic benefits for rural communities. By removing farmers' expenses on chemical inputs, it provides them with greater autonomy and challenges the status quo, where corporations dominate food systems. In practice, however, organisations promoting sustainable agriculture often maintain connections with powerful institutions and individuals, who have vested interests in maintaining the status quo. This book explores this tension within the sustainable farming movement through reference to three detailed case studies of organisations operating in rural India.

Download or read book China s Peasant Agriculture and Rural Society written by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China's agriculture and rural society has undergone rapid changes in recent years. Many poorer farmers and younger people have moved to cities, and yet China has an immense challenge to feed a growing and more affluent population. This book provides a ‘bottom-up view’ of China’s agriculture, showing how the many millions of Chinese peasants make a living. It presents a vivid description of the mechanisms used by rural households to defend and sustain their livelihoods, increase their agricultural production and improve the quality of their lives. The authors examine the newly emerging trajectories of entrepreneurial and capitalist farming and assess whether such alternatives will be able to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges that China faces. The book also explores the paradigm that has underpinned the organisation and development of China’s agriculture from ancient times to the present day. This shows the importance of balancing in the Chinese model as compared to the one-sided imposition of continual modernization in the western model. It is argued that such balancing is at the core of the current Sannong policy, referring to the three ruralities of food sovereignty, wellbeing for peasant households and an attractive countryside.

Download or read book Every Twelve Seconds written by Timothy Pachirat and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-18 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author relates his experiences working five months undercover at a slaughterhouse, and explores why society encourages this violent labor yet keeps the details of the work hidden.