Ben Cousin
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 92325 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Ben Cousin |
| NOMBRES | Ben |
| APELLIDO | Cousin |
| FIRMA | BEN COUSIN |
| AFILIACIONES | University of the Western Cape |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7711-1604 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 30 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 541 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 30 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1992 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
Navigating the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises in South Africa's land reform
The paper explores how beneficiaries of South Africa's land reform programme attempt to navigate the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises. The Mphuzanyoni Communal Property Association in KwaZulu‐Natal province farms with commercial beef herds and the Mayime Cooperative in the Eastern Cape province is engaged in a joint venture dairy farming scheme in partnership with an agrib…
Social differentiation of the peasantry (Marxist)
Marxist understandings of the peasantry focus largely on class relations and seek to locate rural households within wider sets of class structures and dynamics. This article reviews debates and controversies amongst Marxists on the classic agrarian question, class differentiation within processes of transition from pre-capitalist to fully capitalist societies, land reform and class relations, whether or not to characterize peasants as petty commo…
Rights to Land
Land is a hot political issue in South Africa and dominated public discourse throughout 2018, the main focus being a raging controversy on the wisdom of expropriating land without payment of compen
A response to William Beinart and Peter Delius' Rejoinder
The rejoinder by Beinart and Delius sheds further light on the convergence and divergence of our views on land tenure reform in contemporary South Africa. Convergence on such issues as the need for policies to offer a range of options and choices in relation to land tenure systems is briefly noted. Divergence is most notable in relation to contrasting assessments of the option of democratized versions of social tenure, in which shared rights are …
Reproducing the social
Land redistribution policy in South Africa emphasises commercial farming as the legitimate \nuse of land. This production-oriented framework fails to take into account the intertwined but \nunstable relationship between the production of market value and social reproduction, and how \nthis shapes social differentiation. Drawing on a case study of the Besters Land Reform Project in \nthe province of KwaZulu-Natal, the paper shows that land and cat…
BRICS, middle-income countries (MICs), and global agrarian transformations
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries are emerging as key sites of agricultural commodity production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, contributing to major shifts in the character of regional and global agro-food systems. Their growing importance within the world food economy presents new challenges for scholars, activists, policy-makers, and development practitioners. The articles in this collection are…
Social reproduction of 'classes of labour' in the rural areas of South Africa
Marxist agrarian political economy has focused largely on the problematic of accumulation and its politics, but the dynamics of social reproduction in rural contexts remain somewhat under-theorised. These are explored through consideration of empirical evidence from communal areas and land reform farms in South Africa. Key arguments advanced are that social reproduction in such contexts include the reproduction of distinctive forms of marriage, s…
Exporting contradictions
Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in …
Livelihoods afterLandReform inSouthAfrica
Over the past few decades,Zimbabwe,Namibia andSouthAfrica have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. TheLivelihoods afterLandReform (LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. TheSouthAfrican component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and out…
Introduction
This introduction sketches the context and dynamics of agrarian change, rural poverty and land reform since the end of apartheid in 1994, drawing attention to structural continuities and new elements in the countrysides of South Africa, and of the Southern African region in which South Africa must be located. Two key historical and theoretical reference points help focus attention on some central issues: the 'classic' model of dispossession/accum…
Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and 'Accumulation from Above and from Below' inSouthAfrica
A key issue in debates on agrarian reform inSouthAfrica is the potential for small-scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates - the paucity of reliable data on small-scale agriculture, and lack of clarity on the meaning of terms such as 'smallholder' and 'small-scale farmer'. This paper applies class-analytic pers…
An overview of Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
Events in the last decade around the land question in Zimbabwe and the broader political context in which they have played out have been dramatic and transformational. Sparked by land occupations
Contested paradigms of 'viability' in redistributive land reform
Viability' is a key term in debates about land redistribution in southern African and beyond. It is often used to connote 'successful' and 'sustainable'- but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how have particular conceptions of viability informed state policies and planning approaches over time? How have such notions influenced the contested politics of land and agriculture? In southern Africa policy debates have tended to…
Land Reform in South Africa
An insightful study of the complexities of land reform in South Africa is reviewed, and its key arguments assessed. The study astutely combines ethnographic and historical detail from in-depth case studies in Mpumalanga Province with critical analysis of land reform policies, and locates these within larger theoretical debates on property rights, citizenship and identity. The author argues that a profound and unresolved tension exists within Sout…
Capitalism obscured
The Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) was established by the United Nations in 2005 and concluded in 2008. Although inspired by Hernando de Soto's analysis of the role of property rights in economic development, the scope of the Commission was defined as 'legal empowerment' in general. This commentary offers a critique of the CLEP report, and argues that its underlying assumptions rest on an idealised version of liberal democ…
Formalisation of land rights in the South
More Than Socially Embedded
This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which inform…
Debating the Politics of Land Occupations
This essay reviews a provocative but flawed volume of case studies of land occupations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and critically examines the arguments advanced by Moyo and Yeros in their introduction and co-authored chapter on Zimbabwe. The editors’ core proposition is that the agrarian and national questions are linked in the periphery of capitalism because industrial transformation is incomplete, ‘disarticulated’ forms of accumulation p…
Tenure Reform in South Africa
This article describes the key features of African land tenure systems, with particular emphasis on their social and political embeddedness, and the origin of rights in entitlements flowing from group membership rather than from an allocation by authorities. It reviews experience of tenure reform in other parts of Africa, and then analyses the potential impacts of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004, recently promulgated in South Africa. It argu…
Smallholder Agriculture and Land Reform in South Africa
How canland reformcontribute toa revitalisationof smallholder agriculture inSouthernAfrica?Thisquestion remains important despitenegativeperceptions of land reformas a result of the impactofZimbabwe’s “fast-track” resettlement programmeonagriculturalproduction.This articlefocusesmainly onSouthAfrica, whereahighly unequaldistributionof landcoexists withdeep ruralpoverty,but dominant narratives of the efficiency of large-scaleagriculture exert a s …
Decentralisation when Land and Resource Rights are Deeply Contested
The role of land-based strategies in rural livelihoods
The majority of South Africa's rural population resides in the former homelands. Although cash from urban and government sources is the mainstay of the rural economy in many areas, the multiple and diverse livelihood base of rural households is not widely recognised. This diversity includes the land-based strategies of arable farming, livestock husbandry and consumption and trade in natural resources. This article examines recent and emerging lit…
Uncertainty and Institutional Design Proposals for Tenure Reform in South Africa
Summaries Emerging perspectives on institutions and uncertainty in natural resource management contexts include consideration of legal pluralism and multiple institutional domains, formal and informal structures and processes, and a focus on practice and process rather than rules. This article examines recent proposals for tenure reform in the former ‘homelands’ (or Bantustans) of South Africa in the light of the mixed experience of tenure reform…
The Land Crisis in Zimbabwe Viewed from South of the Limpopo
Farm invasions in Zimbabwe have highlighted the pressing need for land reform throughout the southern African region. In South Africa, where the racial disparities in land holding are most severe, the events in Zimbabwe have raised the temperature of the land debate and led to calls for land invasions by some rural groups. The ANC-led government, facing criticism from both right and left for the slow pace of reform, has veered between strident de…
How Do Rights Become Real
Central components of South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform comprise ambitious and wide-ranging ‘rights-based ’ laws and programmes. But how do legally defined rights to resources become effective command over those resources? And what are the limits to social change through legal reform? Two central issues which arise are: supplementing the passing of new legislation with the detailed design of programmes to implement these laws, and the int…
Formalisation of land rights in the South
Social reproduction of 'classes of labour' in the rural areas of South Africa
Marxist agrarian political economy has focused largely on the problematic of accumulation and its politics, but the dynamics of social reproduction in rural contexts remain somewhat under-theorised. These are explored through consideration of empirical evidence from communal areas and land reform farms in South Africa. Key arguments advanced are that social reproduction in such contexts include the reproduction of distinctive forms of marriage, s…
More Than Socially Embedded
This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which inform…
Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and 'Accumulation from Above and from Below' inSouthAfrica
A key issue in debates on agrarian reform inSouthAfrica is the potential for small-scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates - the paucity of reliable data on small-scale agriculture, and lack of clarity on the meaning of terms such as 'smallholder' and 'small-scale farmer'. This paper applies class-analytic pers…
Social differentiation in the communal lands of Zimbabwe
While Zimbabwe's smallholder production expansion is well documented, very little is known about social differentiation in the communal lands where most black smallholders live. This article draws on a growing body of post‐independence survey data, as well as the authors’ research and field experiences, to analyse the structure and dynamics of communal land social differentiation. Utilising a framework which focuses on reproduction and accumulati…
An overview of Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
Events in the last decade around the land question in Zimbabwe and the broader political context in which they have played out have been dramatic and transformational. Sparked by land occupations
Contested paradigms of 'viability' in redistributive land reform
Viability' is a key term in debates about land redistribution in southern African and beyond. It is often used to connote 'successful' and 'sustainable'- but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how have particular conceptions of viability informed state policies and planning approaches over time? How have such notions influenced the contested politics of land and agriculture? In southern Africa policy debates have tended to…
Capitalism obscured
The Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) was established by the United Nations in 2005 and concluded in 2008. Although inspired by Hernando de Soto's analysis of the role of property rights in economic development, the scope of the Commission was defined as 'legal empowerment' in general. This commentary offers a critique of the CLEP report, and argues that its underlying assumptions rest on an idealised version of liberal democ…
Livelihoods afterLandReform inSouthAfrica
Over the past few decades,Zimbabwe,Namibia andSouthAfrica have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. TheLivelihoods afterLandReform (LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. TheSouthAfrican component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and out…
Introduction
This introduction sketches the context and dynamics of agrarian change, rural poverty and land reform since the end of apartheid in 1994, drawing attention to structural continuities and new elements in the countrysides of South Africa, and of the Southern African region in which South Africa must be located. Two key historical and theoretical reference points help focus attention on some central issues: the 'classic' model of dispossession/accum…
Livestock production and common property struggles in South Africa's agrarian reform
1996). Livestock production and common property struggles in South Africa's agrarian reform. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 23, The Agrarian Question in South Africa, pp. 166-208
BRICS, middle-income countries (MICs), and global agrarian transformations
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries are emerging as key sites of agricultural commodity production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, contributing to major shifts in the character of regional and global agro-food systems. Their growing importance within the world food economy presents new challenges for scholars, activists, policy-makers, and development practitioners. The articles in this collection are…
How Do Rights Become Real
Central components of South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform comprise ambitious and wide-ranging ‘rights-based ’ laws and programmes. But how do legally defined rights to resources become effective command over those resources? And what are the limits to social change through legal reform? Two central issues which arise are: supplementing the passing of new legislation with the detailed design of programmes to implement these laws, and the int…
Social differentiation of the peasantry (Marxist)
Marxist understandings of the peasantry focus largely on class relations and seek to locate rural households within wider sets of class structures and dynamics. This article reviews debates and controversies amongst Marxists on the classic agrarian question, class differentiation within processes of transition from pre-capitalist to fully capitalist societies, land reform and class relations, whether or not to characterize peasants as petty commo…
Smallholder Agriculture and Land Reform in South Africa
How canland reformcontribute toa revitalisationof smallholder agriculture inSouthernAfrica?Thisquestion remains important despitenegativeperceptions of land reformas a result of the impactofZimbabwe’s “fast-track” resettlement programmeonagriculturalproduction.This articlefocusesmainly onSouthAfrica, whereahighly unequaldistributionof landcoexists withdeep ruralpoverty,but dominant narratives of the efficiency of large-scaleagriculture exert a s …
Reproducing the social
Land redistribution policy in South Africa emphasises commercial farming as the legitimate \nuse of land. This production-oriented framework fails to take into account the intertwined but \nunstable relationship between the production of market value and social reproduction, and how \nthis shapes social differentiation. Drawing on a case study of the Besters Land Reform Project in \nthe province of KwaZulu-Natal, the paper shows that land and cat…
The Land Crisis in Zimbabwe Viewed from South of the Limpopo
Farm invasions in Zimbabwe have highlighted the pressing need for land reform throughout the southern African region. In South Africa, where the racial disparities in land holding are most severe, the events in Zimbabwe have raised the temperature of the land debate and led to calls for land invasions by some rural groups. The ANC-led government, facing criticism from both right and left for the slow pace of reform, has veered between strident de…
Debating the Politics of Land Occupations
This essay reviews a provocative but flawed volume of case studies of land occupations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and critically examines the arguments advanced by Moyo and Yeros in their introduction and co-authored chapter on Zimbabwe. The editors’ core proposition is that the agrarian and national questions are linked in the periphery of capitalism because industrial transformation is incomplete, ‘disarticulated’ forms of accumulation p…
Tenure Reform in South Africa
This article describes the key features of African land tenure systems, with particular emphasis on their social and political embeddedness, and the origin of rights in entitlements flowing from group membership rather than from an allocation by authorities. It reviews experience of tenure reform in other parts of Africa, and then analyses the potential impacts of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004, recently promulgated in South Africa. It argu…
Conflict Management for Multiple Resource Users in Pastoralist and Agro-Pastoralist Contexts
Livelihood systems in rural social formations often involve the utilization of natural resources for multiple purposes (e.g. wetlands which are used for both cropping and for grazing) or by more than one user (as when rangelands are grazed by different herdowners or groups of herdowners). Disputes or conflicts are common in these situations, and institutional frameworks for resolving disputes and managing conflict have usually evolved in response
Exporting contradictions
Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in …
Land Reform in South Africa
An insightful study of the complexities of land reform in South Africa is reviewed, and its key arguments assessed. The study astutely combines ethnographic and historical detail from in-depth case studies in Mpumalanga Province with critical analysis of land reform policies, and locates these within larger theoretical debates on property rights, citizenship and identity. The author argues that a profound and unresolved tension exists within Sout…
Struggle for control over wetland resources in Zimbabwe
Wetlands are key resources for both agriculture and grazing in the drylands of Africa. They are often central to local contests for control and access. The article examines the struggle for control over wetland resources in Zimbabwe by exploring means by which different local actors have made claims over dambo resources for both agriculture and grazing. The impact of the state, mediated through environmental legislation, technical research, and d…
Debating communal tenure in Zimbabwe
(1993). Debating communal tenure in Zimbabwe. Journal of Contemporary African Studies: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 29-39
Navigating the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises in South Africa's land reform
The paper explores how beneficiaries of South Africa's land reform programme attempt to navigate the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises. The Mphuzanyoni Communal Property Association in KwaZulu‐Natal province farms with commercial beef herds and the Mayime Cooperative in the Eastern Cape province is engaged in a joint venture dairy farming scheme in partnership with an agrib…
Social differentiation in the communal lands of Zimbabwe
While Zimbabwe's smallholder production expansion is well documented, very little is known about social differentiation in the communal lands where most black smallholders live. This article draws on a growing body of post‐independence survey data, as well as the authors’ research and field experiences, to analyse the structure and dynamics of communal land social differentiation. Utilising a framework which focuses on reproduction and accumulati…
Debating communal tenure in Zimbabwe
(1993). Debating communal tenure in Zimbabwe. Journal of Contemporary African Studies: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 29-39
Struggle for control over wetland resources in Zimbabwe
Wetlands are key resources for both agriculture and grazing in the drylands of Africa. They are often central to local contests for control and access. The article examines the struggle for control over wetland resources in Zimbabwe by exploring means by which different local actors have made claims over dambo resources for both agriculture and grazing. The impact of the state, mediated through environmental legislation, technical research, and d…
Conflict Management for Multiple Resource Users in Pastoralist and Agro-Pastoralist Contexts
Livelihood systems in rural social formations often involve the utilization of natural resources for multiple purposes (e.g. wetlands which are used for both cropping and for grazing) or by more than one user (as when rangelands are grazed by different herdowners or groups of herdowners). Disputes or conflicts are common in these situations, and institutional frameworks for resolving disputes and managing conflict have usually evolved in response
Livestock production and common property struggles in South Africa's agrarian reform
1996). Livestock production and common property struggles in South Africa's agrarian reform. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 23, The Agrarian Question in South Africa, pp. 166-208
How Do Rights Become Real
Central components of South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform comprise ambitious and wide-ranging ‘rights-based ’ laws and programmes. But how do legally defined rights to resources become effective command over those resources? And what are the limits to social change through legal reform? Two central issues which arise are: supplementing the passing of new legislation with the detailed design of programmes to implement these laws, and the int…
The role of land-based strategies in rural livelihoods
The majority of South Africa's rural population resides in the former homelands. Although cash from urban and government sources is the mainstay of the rural economy in many areas, the multiple and diverse livelihood base of rural households is not widely recognised. This diversity includes the land-based strategies of arable farming, livestock husbandry and consumption and trade in natural resources. This article examines recent and emerging lit…
Uncertainty and Institutional Design Proposals for Tenure Reform in South Africa
Summaries Emerging perspectives on institutions and uncertainty in natural resource management contexts include consideration of legal pluralism and multiple institutional domains, formal and informal structures and processes, and a focus on practice and process rather than rules. This article examines recent proposals for tenure reform in the former ‘homelands’ (or Bantustans) of South Africa in the light of the mixed experience of tenure reform…
The Land Crisis in Zimbabwe Viewed from South of the Limpopo
Farm invasions in Zimbabwe have highlighted the pressing need for land reform throughout the southern African region. In South Africa, where the racial disparities in land holding are most severe, the events in Zimbabwe have raised the temperature of the land debate and led to calls for land invasions by some rural groups. The ANC-led government, facing criticism from both right and left for the slow pace of reform, has veered between strident de…
Decentralisation when Land and Resource Rights are Deeply Contested
Tenure Reform in South Africa
This article describes the key features of African land tenure systems, with particular emphasis on their social and political embeddedness, and the origin of rights in entitlements flowing from group membership rather than from an allocation by authorities. It reviews experience of tenure reform in other parts of Africa, and then analyses the potential impacts of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004, recently promulgated in South Africa. It argu…
Smallholder Agriculture and Land Reform in South Africa
How canland reformcontribute toa revitalisationof smallholder agriculture inSouthernAfrica?Thisquestion remains important despitenegativeperceptions of land reformas a result of the impactofZimbabwe’s “fast-track” resettlement programmeonagriculturalproduction.This articlefocusesmainly onSouthAfrica, whereahighly unequaldistributionof landcoexists withdeep ruralpoverty,but dominant narratives of the efficiency of large-scaleagriculture exert a s …
Debating the Politics of Land Occupations
This essay reviews a provocative but flawed volume of case studies of land occupations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and critically examines the arguments advanced by Moyo and Yeros in their introduction and co-authored chapter on Zimbabwe. The editors’ core proposition is that the agrarian and national questions are linked in the periphery of capitalism because industrial transformation is incomplete, ‘disarticulated’ forms of accumulation p…
More Than Socially Embedded
This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which inform…
Formalisation of land rights in the South
Land Reform in South Africa
An insightful study of the complexities of land reform in South Africa is reviewed, and its key arguments assessed. The study astutely combines ethnographic and historical detail from in-depth case studies in Mpumalanga Province with critical analysis of land reform policies, and locates these within larger theoretical debates on property rights, citizenship and identity. The author argues that a profound and unresolved tension exists within Sout…
Capitalism obscured
The Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) was established by the United Nations in 2005 and concluded in 2008. Although inspired by Hernando de Soto's analysis of the role of property rights in economic development, the scope of the Commission was defined as 'legal empowerment' in general. This commentary offers a critique of the CLEP report, and argues that its underlying assumptions rest on an idealised version of liberal democ…
Contested paradigms of 'viability' in redistributive land reform
Viability' is a key term in debates about land redistribution in southern African and beyond. It is often used to connote 'successful' and 'sustainable'- but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how have particular conceptions of viability informed state policies and planning approaches over time? How have such notions influenced the contested politics of land and agriculture? In southern Africa policy debates have tended to…
An overview of Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe
Events in the last decade around the land question in Zimbabwe and the broader political context in which they have played out have been dramatic and transformational. Sparked by land occupations
Livelihoods afterLandReform inSouthAfrica
Over the past few decades,Zimbabwe,Namibia andSouthAfrica have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. TheLivelihoods afterLandReform (LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. TheSouthAfrican component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and out…
Introduction
This introduction sketches the context and dynamics of agrarian change, rural poverty and land reform since the end of apartheid in 1994, drawing attention to structural continuities and new elements in the countrysides of South Africa, and of the Southern African region in which South Africa must be located. Two key historical and theoretical reference points help focus attention on some central issues: the 'classic' model of dispossession/accum…
Smallholder Irrigation Schemes, Agrarian Reform and 'Accumulation from Above and from Below' inSouthAfrica
A key issue in debates on agrarian reform inSouthAfrica is the potential for small-scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates - the paucity of reliable data on small-scale agriculture, and lack of clarity on the meaning of terms such as 'smallholder' and 'small-scale farmer'. This paper applies class-analytic pers…
Exporting contradictions
Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in …
BRICS, middle-income countries (MICs), and global agrarian transformations
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries are emerging as key sites of agricultural commodity production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, contributing to major shifts in the character of regional and global agro-food systems. Their growing importance within the world food economy presents new challenges for scholars, activists, policy-makers, and development practitioners. The articles in this collection are…
Social reproduction of 'classes of labour' in the rural areas of South Africa
Marxist agrarian political economy has focused largely on the problematic of accumulation and its politics, but the dynamics of social reproduction in rural contexts remain somewhat under-theorised. These are explored through consideration of empirical evidence from communal areas and land reform farms in South Africa. Key arguments advanced are that social reproduction in such contexts include the reproduction of distinctive forms of marriage, s…
Political science (27 obras) · Economics (25 obras) · Land Rights and Reforms (25 obras) · Geography (24 obras) · Agriculture (23 obras) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (17 obras) · Economic growth (16 obras) · Sociology (15 obras) · African studies and sociopolitical issues (14 obras) · Law (13 obras)