{"title":"After the Long Walk Home…the Gendered Rural Safety Net","authors":"D. Nathan, Rahul S., G. Kelkar","doi":"10.1177/22779760231164860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231164860","url":null,"abstract":"In the absence of adequate social security for migrant workers, the recession forced the mass exodus of millions of circular migrants supported by their rural households of largely left-behind women. Our article looks at what happened after that. How did the returned migrants manage to survive and retain their capacity to work till they were required back in urban employment? This article argues that gendered rural households functioned as safety nets in the severe recession in the Indian economy which highlights the weakness in the state policy and lack of resources in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were safety nets not only for workers directly working in food value chains but also for reverse migrants. Overall, the recession did not just result in a temporary loss of income but also increased inequality and strengthened the oligopoly structure of the Indian economy.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117056950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Grassroots Initiatives for Ecological Transition in China","authors":"Tsui Sit, Lau Kin Chi, H. Zhiyou, Liang Shaoxiong","doi":"10.1177/22779760231163955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231163955","url":null,"abstract":"In light of ecological disasters in China and social alienation among the Chinese people, this article argues that ecology must take precedence over economy, agriculture over industry and finance, and life over money and profit. The article focuses on the New Rural Reconstruction Movement and the Loving Home Village campaigns and identifies several grassroots initiatives in search for pathways to social and ecological transition. It presents in detail the trajectories of Little Donkey Farm, Liang Shuming Rural Reconstruction Center, Yun Jianli, and Yang Zhengxi, which are examples of how to mobilize both urban and rural communities to participate in social and ecolo- gical transformation.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"119 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116603003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heterogeneity of Water Justice and the Question of Nile Solidarity","authors":"A. Abazeed","doi":"10.1177/22779760231170530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231170530","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the recent contestation over the Nile River due to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and its implications for the agrarian question and water justice. The article focuses on the commodification of the Nile by national governments, whereby technology, rationality, and regulations have become the driving force of the river’s development. The engagement of civil society actors in the GERD dispute reveals several perceptions of “riverhood” of the Nile. As a result, water justice is heterogeneous and challenges building a wide-basin movement.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125069715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Seed Houses and the “Master’s Land”: A Study of the Ecology of Practices and Autonomy in Brazil’s Semi-arid Region","authors":"H. R. Lopes","doi":"10.1177/22779760231171903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231171903","url":null,"abstract":"Seed storage is part of peasant livelihoods in Brazil’s semi-arid region. This study is based on empirical research carried out in the semi-arid region of Sobral, in the north-eastern state of Ceará, with peasants who participate in Seed Houses. The study seeks to understand how peasants engaged in multiple struggles and produced what they identify as “autonomy from the master’s seeds,” even in a context where the so-called master maintains control over land. The main question can be presented as what comes into play in this autonomy constituted by Seed Houses? The investigation intends to contribute to related debates on the agrarian question and the dimensions of autonomy, analysing the ecology of practices associated with seeds exercised through the collective action of the Seed Houses, involving continuities between land and natural resources.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132549000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agroecology and Agrarian Transitions: Current Debate in India","authors":"D. Abrol","doi":"10.1177/22779760231164861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231164861","url":null,"abstract":"The article critically evaluates the attempt by the Modi government to promote the model of zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF) as an alternate path to agrarian development in India. It is well apparent from the analysis of the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) guidelines that the advocates of natural farming have chosen to turn a blind eye to the constraints of Indian agrarian structures in the shift away from selective delinking for food security to global integration, with landlord capitalists and corporate capital in control of the path formation. The cheap nature and cheap labor outlook is built in the input correction emphasis of natural farming and in the assumption of “zero budgets” for the farmer and the government. The ZBNF model will prevent the NMNF from tackling the landscape, structural, and system-level challenges of agrarian transformation. Significant barriers to the adoption of agroecological approaches can be expected to arise due to the lack of commitment to help the peasants and landless proletariat with the protection of the commons and the public investment needed for the promotion of agroecological approaches.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125405467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pathways to Ecological Transition—Part I","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/22779760231153432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231153432","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122282892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: K. R. Shyam Sunder (Ed.), Contemporary Reforms of Labour Market and Industrial Relations Systems in India: Ease of Doing Business versus Labour Rights: In Honour of Prof. Lalit Deshpande","authors":"Parag Banerjee, Avinash Kumar","doi":"10.1177/22779760231153325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231153325","url":null,"abstract":"K. R. Shyam Sunder (Ed.), Contemporary Reforms of Labour Market and Industrial Relations Systems in India: Ease of Doing Business versus Labour Rights: In Honour of Prof. Lalit Deshpande (New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2018), 380 pp. US$79.95, ISBN 9789332704527 (Hardback).","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128680951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Land, Water, and Gender Questions in South Africa: A Transformative Social Policy Perspective","authors":"Newman Tekwa, J. Adesina","doi":"10.1177/22779760231151517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760231151517","url":null,"abstract":"The heated debate around Section 25 of the South African Constitution and the principle of “expropriation of land without compensation” is conspicuously missing the inextricable link between land, water, and gender questions. Within former settler colonies, the “land question” is a “water question” and, by extension, also a “gender question.” The racially inequitable land distribution, codified in the Native Land Act of 1913, mirrored the unequal distribution of rights and access to water as codified in the Water Act of 1956. This was compounded by the gender question, in which lack of access to land for women mutated into lack of access to other productive resources. While secondary data analysis reveals that blacks control only 5.8% of agricultural water uses, Black women control less than 1%. Such intersectionality of race, class, and gender ought to remain a relentless focus of transformative social policy in South Africa.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134139581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Land and Water in Rural São Paulo: Case Study of Environmental Inequalities in Brazil","authors":"R. Martins","doi":"10.1177/22779760221145241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221145241","url":null,"abstract":"The governance of environmental resources in rural territories is an issue that has received special attention in recent studies. This article presents research on conflicts in the management of water policies in rural territories in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The study addresses a case of tensions and conflicts in water governance promoted by River Basin Committees. The case study, carried out in the municipality of Barra Bonita between 2000 and 2010, used qualitative social research techniques, focusing on semistructured interviews, utilizing oral reports, and documentary survey. Based on the results of this research, this article discusses how different agrarian and agricultural contexts reproduce specific forms of inequalities in access to water, thus compromising the promotion of lasting standards of environmental justice at the local level.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"67 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129625307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theories of Political Ecology: Monopoly Capital Against People and the Planet","authors":"Max Ajl","doi":"10.1177/22779760221145232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221145232","url":null,"abstract":"This article engages with and critiques dominant theories of political ecology. It takes the theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) as the framework of critique. It assesses the claims of “fossil capitalism,” eco-modernism, extractivism, and degrowth, as well as the theories of “post-development.” It finds that with the exception of degrowth, none of them take imperialism or the global history of accumulation sufficiently seriously, and either displace transformative obligations wholly onto the South or adopt a framework which centers merely the agency of the Northern working class or a class-blind movement of movements. Instead, it proposes modifications of EUE based on the polarized nature of accumulation and waste production and distribution, and neocolonialism. It uses that framework to identify the antisystemic role of nature-reliant peripheral semi-proletarian classes, and from there reopens the debate on appropriate-scale industrialization along with ecological transformations of agriculture as paths to development in the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129009505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}