Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contemporary perspective on post land reform Zimbabwe with special focus on the youth. It uses the social reproduction conceptual framework to show that two decades after land reform, there are generational questions which are now arising in the new resettlement areas which need deeper, empirical and more nuanced analysis to comprehend. In a context where some countries in Southern Africa are grappling with the best ways of dealing with their land questions, it shows that from a youth perspective, the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) has important lessons.

The study was largely qualitative and grounded in an interpretive research paradigm. It employed various data gathering instruments and solicited for responses from 151 young people as well as 11 key informants. The study used the social reproduction perspective as a conceptual and evaluative tool to ascertain the outcomes of the FTLRP from a social reproduction perspective with special focus on young people.

The study showed that there are some young people in the resettlement areas who blame the land reform programme for the challenging socio-economic situation which they are facing. It also shows that for the youth, the FTLRP has had multi-dimensional impact; while some are complaining, others have managed to use their agency to access natural resources and land, which has seen them “accumulating from below”. For some young people, land reform has positively transformed their lives, while others feel that it has limited their opportunities.

The paper provides new and contemporary insights on post land reform Zimbabwe. This is an area which is increasingly gaining traction in scholarship on the FTLRP. In addition, the paper provides a unique perspective of looking at the issue of the youth from a social reproduction perspective; this is a unique academic contribution. Lastly, the paper is useful insofar as it transcends the debates on the FTLRP to proffer a unique analysis on the social reproduction dimensions of the FTLRP.

The system of government-run poor relief in England, dating from the sixteenth century, was not replicated in Europe until the mid- to late 1800s. In order to understand why, poor relief must be placed within the socio-economic framework of capitalism, a system of surplus appropriation which originated in the novel class relations of English agriculture. The English way of dealing with poverty was distinctive and this distinctiveness was rooted in the unparalleled expansion of capitalism in that country in the early modern era. Assistance to the poor in England emerged alongside a qualitative social change, wherein an economy rooted in custom was transformed into one based on the competitive social relations of capitalism. The main conclusion of this article is that the welfare state was not a product of industrialization but of the class structure of agrarian capitalism.

Recurrent “methodological disputes” have haunted the social sciences, again and again polarizing the case-oriented quest for specification against the natural science inspired quest for general, high-level theory. As a consequence, too much social science research is captured in either one of two vicious circles: ever more highly specified monographic case studies or preoccupation with periodically shifting general theories. The interaction of these two circles increases the risk of widespread amnesia: as social scientists are either bogged down in a stream of cases or flying high with the most recent grand (meta-)theories, social science forgets the actual empirical knowledge that is being meticulously created, maintained and revised in the daily handicraft carried out by a growing mass of researchers.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore rural life in Bulgaria. It is part of a research project that compares rural life in Russia, Estonia, Eastern Germany and Bulgaria after the breakdown of the communist regimes.

Methodology – The research represents a qualitative approach. Participant observation and in-depth interviews are its material base.

Findings – The case study of a Bulgarian village demonstrates clearly that institution building is completed: the organizations of democracy and the mechanism of the market have been established, private property being restituted. But the villagers interpret the developments not in tune with these developments. Old patterns of political cleavages are renewed and pronounced aloud now. The village is split up into two groups, red and blue, representing the former communists and the others. Another cleavage agreed upon by both groups is represented by deep aversions to Gypsies, excluding them from the community and thus constituting its fragile identity. Overwhelming is a sentiment of apathy that is far from any political or social awakening.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter presents field research done in a Bulgarian post-communist village and contributes in this way to the knowledge of the transformed rural areas in Eastern Europe.

The article questions a recent interpretation of increased intergenerational sharecropping in Haiti as a labour‐mobilising device and offers a re‐interpretation based on the increasing relative price of land.

The agricultural sector has undergone extensive changes in the 20-30 years since the peak academic debate on family farming. Still today, the understanding and concept of family farming has political implications in the processes of rural and agricultural policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the development of agrarian structure by analysing the gendered and family relations of family farming.

This paper examines the concept of the family farm and its utilisation and diversity in the current Swedish agricultural sector from a gender perspective, using empirical data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network. The paper operationalises a situated agrarian typology and examines the gendered position and temporalities of family farms in Sweden, based on patterns of labour use.

A workable, fruitful typology of the agrarian structure suitable for future comparative studies is revealed. It also demonstrates the gendered time in the farm labour process, the different temporalities involved and their interconnection between gender, family and various spheres. The spatial and geographical implications, as well as the increased dependence on family and hired labour in different farm types, are emphasised.

The focus of this study contributes to the understanding of spatial-temporal relations of family farm business and organisation in general and in Sweden particularly. It also provides empirical basis for developing and gender mainstreaming rural and agricultural policies.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This paper compares the agrarian development of two indigenous communities in the highlands of Ecuador who specialize in nontraditional agricultural exports (NTAE). It brings together the peasant theory with literature on the environmental impact of globalization.

Through a comparative ethnography, based on six months of participant observation and interviewers, I illustrate the differences in production processes and explain the divergent trajectories of agrarian modernization.

I found that NTAE impacted the two communities differently: one became more ecologically sustainable and the other became more environmentally exploitative. However, neither case fits squarely within the framework of modern/traditional or peasant/capitalist. Instead of traditional environmentalism and individualistic exploitation, we see the reverse: individualistic environmentalism and traditional exploitation. That is, ecological methods are paired with individualistic competition, and environmental exploitation takes place within a system of communal solidarity.

With buyer-driven organic certification standards, global integration does not always lead to ecological degradation. For quinoa growers, traditional production practices persist not as resistance to global capitalism but as a strategy to access high-value export markets. Broccoli farmers, although exploitative of local natural resources and their own health, do so within communal institutions that buffer against individualistic risk-taking.

This comparative case presents an alternative depiction of modernization as complex and nonlinear.

This chapter explores the writings of Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi, especially on the post-colonial state, ethnicity, peasantry and kinship relations. In contradistinction to most (partial) uptakes of Alavi, I evaluate his work as a whole in order to shed light on its continuities and discontinuities. I demonstrate both the strengths and pitfalls of Alavi's theorisation of the post-colonial state, mode of production and ethnicity by placing him in context of wider Marxist debates at the time. I then suggest that Alavi's other work (e.g. on the peasantry and kinship relations) may serve to complement the weaknesses of the former. Thus, by reading Alavi contra Alavi, I advocate for an ‘integral’ perspective on the relations between civil and political society, arguing for a conjunctural awareness of mediations between the same, and their imbrications with differentiated relations of class, ethnicity and kinship.