{"title":"Book review: Mukulika Banerjee (2022). Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India","authors":"Manish Kumar","doi":"10.1177/22779760221135339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221135339","url":null,"abstract":"Mukulika Banerjee (2022). Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 97801973993 (Hardback), xiv + 237 pp., ₹995.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122807790","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":"Bringing the Vegetables Back In: The Unruly Dynamics of Postwar Market Gardening in British Colonial Hong Kong","authors":"S. Chow","doi":"10.1177/22779760221133679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221133679","url":null,"abstract":"The Vegetable Marketing Organization (VMO) historically has long been a focal point of the study of the postwar boom of local agriculture in Hong Kong for two reasons. First, it centralized/monopolized the city’s vegetable wholesaling by eradicating all traditional marketing channels; second, its semiofficial status allowed it to accumulate a set of useful statistics on the production and circulation of local fresh produces. This article draws on fieldwork on local market gardeners and studies of colonial marketing institutions to argue that official statistics are rather inadequate to grasp the dynamics of local agriculture. A study of the so-called “dawn markets” and the vegetative dimension of the plants that lie outside the official system is necessary. It also suggests that dawn markets were not any residue from the pre-VMO era, but an “unruly twin” of the post-World War II colonial Hong Kong’s governmentality.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130806355","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: Shubhra Chakrabarty and Utsa Patnaik (2017). Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri","authors":"A. Prasad","doi":"10.1177/22779760221128310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221128310","url":null,"abstract":"Shubhra Chakrabarty and Utsa Patnaik (2017). Agrarian and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri. Tulika Books, xxiv + 324 pp., INR 695. (Hardback).","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"87 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125387143","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":"Power Asymmetry and Unequal Exchange in the Agricultural Value Systems: Case Study of Paddy","authors":"M. Nireekshan Kumar","doi":"10.1177/22779760221133968","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221133968","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the heterogeneity and power asymmetry within Agricultural Value Systems (AVS). The power asymmetry arises due to the peculiar nature of cultivation and noncultivation sections of the AVS and also because of different factor endowments within the farming community. The power asymmetry in AVS siphons off surplus from cultivation to noncultivation segments of the AVS. The theoretical discussion in this article is followed by an example of paddy value systems in India. The article suggests that merely connecting farmers with the markets will not be sufficient because of the systemic existence of power asymmetry.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125055018","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: Christoph Scherrer and Ismail Karatepe (Eds) (2021). The Phantom of Upgrading in Agricultural Supply Chains: A Cross-country, Cross-crop Comparison of Smallholders","authors":"Meghna Goyal","doi":"10.1177/22779760221127906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221127906","url":null,"abstract":"Christoph Scherrer and Ismail Karatepe (Eds) (2021). The Phantom of Upgrading in Agricultural Supply Chains: A Cross-country, Cross-crop Comparison of Smallholders. Book Series Labour and Globalisation, 22(22). Nomos. 353 pp., US$45 (Paperback). ISBN: 9783985420049.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117268728","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":"On Political Economy and its Fallacies: Why Critiques and Rethinking Matter","authors":"U. Patnaik","doi":"10.1177/22779760221128656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221128656","url":null,"abstract":"This article is the 10th anniversary lecture of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, delivered in 2021. It provides a reflection on key issues and fallacies that lie at the origins of political economy. It is argued that, as regards the problem of knowledge production, the formulation of factually and logically incorrect theories begins with English classical political economy. Political economy as developed in England in the second half of the eighteenth century—a period which saw a rapid increase in its trade especially with its colonies of conquest, while also making the transition to factory production—proceeded on the basis of verbal and material fallacies and silences which have been reproduced in historiography and the discipline of economics to this day.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"130 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132301270","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: Sukhpal Singh (2018). Institutional Innovations in the Delivery of Farm Services in India: A Small Holder Perspective","authors":"P. Jha","doi":"10.1177/22779760221102565","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221102565","url":null,"abstract":"Sukhpal Singh (2018). Institutional Innovations in the Delivery of Farm Services in India: A Small Holder Perspective. New Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad: Springer India. CMA Publication No. 251 (Hardback), xxiv + 246 pp., Bibliography, Index, $149.99.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122670532","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":"Housing and Unfree Labour: A Village Case Study from Rajasthan, India","authors":"Shamsher Singh","doi":"10.1177/22779760221101335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221101335","url":null,"abstract":"The phenomenon of unfree labour relations in the Indian countryside continues to remain a matter of concern. While multiple factors contribute to attachment and unfreedom of labour dependency on employers for housing, it is an understudied issue in the existing literature. Drawing on a detailed field study of an agriculturally advanced village in Sri Ganganagar district of north-western state of Rajasthan, this study discusses the role of housing in labour relations and contracts. It has been argued that when the proximate cause of unfree labour relations in this village is the lack of access to housing and homestead among the local landless Dalit labourers, the nature of overall dependence derives from multiple socio-economic factors rooted in unequal caste and class relations, inequality in land ownership and limited employment opportunities within the capital-intensive local agrarian production system. This article also discusses the nature, mechanisms and types of long-term labour contracts and labour services prevalent in the village and how all these are closely intertwined with caste relations. The study explores labour dependency in relation to labour contracts, wage negotiations, freedom and mobility, and working and living conditions.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133019046","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":"South–South Cooperation in Agriculture: Impacts of Brazil’s More Food International Program on Post-Land Reform Social Organizations in Zimbabwe","authors":"R. G. Muchetu, T. Shonhe","doi":"10.1177/22779760221103118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221103118","url":null,"abstract":"South–South Cooperation has received significant attention. This article assesses the implications of Brazil’s More Food International on farm-level social organizations in Goromonzi and Mvurwi districts in Zimbabwe. Data was collected using mainly focus group discussions, key-informant interviews, and the application of a questionnaire among 410 farming households. Differentiated implications and outcomes were observed between the two districts. Overall, the Brazilian programs improved access to tractor and irrigation implements. Still, the implements were more suited to the large-scale production systems rather than to those of the small-scale A1 farmers. Furthermore, a top-down approach utilized by the state has adverse consequences. The prerequisite of forming cooperatives before accessing the tractors and irrigation implements disrupted local political and socio-economic organizations already in existence within the two districts. The study concludes that, while farm mechanization is crucial for agricultural production, the exclusion of the farmers during policy conceptualization undermines the success of these programs.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134399281","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":"Extended Agrarian Question in Concessionary Capitalism: The Jakarta’s Kaum Miskin Kota","authors":"Bosman Batubara, Noer Fauzi Rachman","doi":"10.1177/22779760221095121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/22779760221095121","url":null,"abstract":"This article reassesses agrarian questions by using the ongoing explosion in urban and urbanization theories to explain Jakarta’s urban poor (the Kaum Miskin Kota) as an extended agrarian question. It shows how the two capitalist development trajectories identified by Lenin as the Russian and American paths, or the transformation of feudal large-scale and small landholders into capitalists, respectively, do not apply in Indonesia. In the latter, a “concessionary capitalism” of large-scale land claims and allocations by the state is observed. This specific process produces specific agrarian questions of soil/land and labor through which the urban poor germinated. It closes with a political project, that is, to open more alliance-building possibilities between urban and rural social movements.","PeriodicalId":398756,"journal":{"name":"Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116096784","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}