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Mnqobi Ngubane
(University of Johannesburg)
Guadalupe Satiro
(University of Brasilia)
George Mudimu
(MUAST)
Bao Nguyet Dang
(International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Melanie Sommerville
(NMBU)
Enrique Castañón Ballivián
(SOAS, University of London)
Chair:
Mnqobi Ngubane
(University of Johannesburg)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Rural & agrarian spaces
Sessions:
Thursday 7 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Counter agrarian reform in the Global South: dynamics of accumulation and change.
Panel P21b at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This panel invites papers that critically examine the deepening of capitalist relations, and counter agrarian reform dynamics, in ongoing, and post land reform localities in diverse regions of the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Critical development studies and agrarian studies scholars have highlighted new ways in which capital resuscitates to regain control of land redistributed through land reform in diverse regions of the Global South. We seek papers illuminating deepening capitalist relations in ongoing, and post land reform contexts, highlighting forms, dynamics and consequences of deepened market relations for social reproduction of peasants and working classes, and papers examining resistance against counter agrarian reform.
Redistributive land reform deepens market relations for subaltern classes barred from market participation opportunities under oppressive political regimes. Deepened market participation can be engagements in land rental markets or various partnerships by recipients of land reform farmland without capital for agricultural investments, nor state agricultural subsidies, and without access to alternative forms of production beyond conventional agriculture. These deepened capitalist market relations can be exclusionary, and progressive. Exclusionary when they facilitate post land reform land dispossession, and resuscitating exploitative productive extractivism. Progressive when they facilitate alternative forms of production that are democratic, self-exploitative and beneficial to marginalised classes.
Processes of accumulation in ongoing, and post land reform contexts potentially reverse the gains of redistributive land reform and can lead to land grabbings of land reform land. Counter agrarian reform is justified by capital and infiltrated into agricultural policy through popular hegemonic narratives cushioned in incapacitating articulative languages opposed to alternative forms of farming in ongoing, and post land reform contexts, such as small-scale capitalist agriculture in Zimbabwe, and squeezed forms of the latter in Brazil, Kenya and South Africa.
Methodology:
The panellists will circulate papers to convenors in advance, and also upload their two minutes pitch presentations/voice or video recording in advance. The remaining time of the 40 minute panel will be used for a general discussion towards a journal special issue submission.
Using Canadian and South African cases, this paper examines how market forces undo the reparative remit of liberal democratic land programs in advanced capitalist economies. In current form, such programs risk replacing historical 'accumulation by dispossession' with 'accumulation by reparations.'
Paper long abstract:
Redistributive land claim and land reform programs carry within them a reparative expectation or remit. This paper examines the conflicts that arise between this remit and market forces in liberal democratic, advanced capitalist economies. I draw on case studies from Canada and South Africa, two decidedly different contexts which nonetheless share two key features. First, established land claim (Canada) and land reform (South Africa) programs emergent from long histories of struggle against historical processes of dispossession at the hands of the settler colonial state. Second, well developed commercial agriculture sectors characterized by large scale farming with a productivist focus. The increasingly corporatized and financialized forms of agriculture that dominate in these settings present many barriers to land recipients eager to participate in commercial farming. At the same time, certain forms of (self-describedly) 'socially responsible' capital stand ready to 'help' these communities engage their land. What results are new forms of exploitation parasitic on land reparations: in effect, the replacement of historical 'accumulation by dispossession' processes by 'accumulation by reparations' ones. I reflect on the implications of the cases amidst proliferating demands for land, seen locally in the expropriation without compensation (South Africa) and #landback (Canada) movements, but which are also accelerating in other contexts globally.
I analyse the contradiction between post-apartheid South Africa’s neo-liberal land reform & agricultural policies, & redistribution, & how this reproduces underdevelopment & a bifurcated state in former Bantustans based on state-private-chieftaincy axis.
Paper long abstract:
Market-based land reform and neo-liberal ANC rule reproduce underdevelopment
From colonial and apartheid era policies, post-apartheid South Africa inherited a dualistic, unequal and racially divided land ownership patterns and agrarian structure. Racist land and agricultural laws and policies prevented the development of black agriculture and ultimately led to its systematic reduction into survivalist subsistence. The past policies saw massive state subsidisation and support of white-controlled, commercialised, and capital intensive agriculture.
The paper will show that there is a glaring contradiction between the neo-liberal deregulation and liberalisation logic of post-apartheid land reform and agricultural policies, and the post-apartheid government’s rhetorical commitment to equity, redistribution and improved livelihoods. The paper will also demonstrate how market-based land reform intersects with the reproduction of underdevelopment and a bifurcated state in the rural areas of the former apartheid Bantustans underpinned by collusion between the state, private capital and the tribal chiefly elite.
The paper will conclude with resistance and struggles for an alternative emerging in the rural sector, in response to the impact of the contradictions noted above.
This paper examines counter agrarian reform in South Africa, focusing on the snail-paced land reform programme. Emerging class alliances have led to neo-liberal approaches rather than transformative solutions enabled by the democratic constitution and legislation developed after apartheid.
Paper long abstract:
Land dispossession was central to the colonial and apartheid projects in South Africa. White capitalist agriculture evolved through labour tenancy characterised by a combination of forced labour, non-remunerated labour, payment in kind and wage labour, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. South Africa's constitution provides tools to transform society and deepen democracy through market and non-market rights based land reform mechanisms. Nevertheless, the central role of the market has seen the government at the centre of class alliances that have disempowered and excluded the poor and marginalised. Resultant neo-liberal approaches including a willing buyer willing seller approach to land redistribution, land restitution and land tenure reform have produced counter agrarian reform outcomes. Indeed a failure to develop the art of statecraft through creating institutional capacity and capability has led to land reform outcomes being defined and measured in hectares and numbers of people rather than transformation, empowerment and sustainability. Evolving class alliances have seen the government emerge as the willing buyer and white land owners as the willing sellers, often at prices which bear no relationship to market value. This paper problematises policy and practice, while drawing attention to constitutional and legislative strengths and limitations and evaluates the manner in which counter land and agrarian reform has been characterised by top-down implementation, the creation of imagined communities and reproduced poverty through post-colonial and neo-colonial untruth. The paper concludes by examining prospects and opportunities for alternatives and the political-economic conditions under which these may be achieved.
This paper analyses the social relations of property, production, and reproduction in South African land reform. Research findings suggest an emergent form of an impoverished landed property on redistributed farmland, which may have theoretical implications for the Global South.
Paper long abstract:
The South African land reform has produced variegated land ownership entities, from communal to private forms of title. An analysis of social relations of property, production, and reproduction within these forms of land ownership regimes shows an emerging impoverished form of landed property, and a minority of emerging black medium scale farmers transitioning into the middle class via accumulation from below. The concept of an impoverished landed property denotes classes of labour with improved access to farmland through land reform who are too poor to invest in expanded farm reproduction, and forced by the dull compulsion of economic forces to lease out or sell their farmland to fragments of agrarian capital. The impoverished landed property concept may have theoretical implications elsewhere, particularly in some regions of the Global South with recent redistributive land reform in an era of spectacular impoverishment accumulated from centuries of dispossessions, by subaltern communities therein, who have recently gained improved access to farmland through land reform. The formation of an impoverished landed property via land reform is part and parcel of counter agrarian reform processes, as capital mutates to regain control of land lost through land reform, within a neoliberal state, characterised by limited agricultural subsidies for new entrants in capitalist agriculture.
Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
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Guadalupe Satiro (University of Brasilia)
George Mudimu (MUAST)
Bao Nguyet Dang (International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Melanie Sommerville (NMBU)
Enrique Castañón Ballivián (SOAS, University of London)
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that critically examine the deepening of capitalist relations, and counter agrarian reform dynamics, in ongoing, and post land reform localities in diverse regions of the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Critical development studies and agrarian studies scholars have highlighted new ways in which capital resuscitates to regain control of land redistributed through land reform in diverse regions of the Global South. We seek papers illuminating deepening capitalist relations in ongoing, and post land reform contexts, highlighting forms, dynamics and consequences of deepened market relations for social reproduction of peasants and working classes, and papers examining resistance against counter agrarian reform.
Redistributive land reform deepens market relations for subaltern classes barred from market participation opportunities under oppressive political regimes. Deepened market participation can be engagements in land rental markets or various partnerships by recipients of land reform farmland without capital for agricultural investments, nor state agricultural subsidies, and without access to alternative forms of production beyond conventional agriculture. These deepened capitalist market relations can be exclusionary, and progressive. Exclusionary when they facilitate post land reform land dispossession, and resuscitating exploitative productive extractivism. Progressive when they facilitate alternative forms of production that are democratic, self-exploitative and beneficial to marginalised classes.
Processes of accumulation in ongoing, and post land reform contexts potentially reverse the gains of redistributive land reform and can lead to land grabbings of land reform land. Counter agrarian reform is justified by capital and infiltrated into agricultural policy through popular hegemonic narratives cushioned in incapacitating articulative languages opposed to alternative forms of farming in ongoing, and post land reform contexts, such as small-scale capitalist agriculture in Zimbabwe, and squeezed forms of the latter in Brazil, Kenya and South Africa.
Methodology:
The panellists will circulate papers to convenors in advance, and also upload their two minutes pitch presentations/voice or video recording in advance. The remaining time of the 40 minute panel will be used for a general discussion towards a journal special issue submission.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 7 July, 2022, -Melanie Sommerville (NMBU)
Mazibuko Jara (Pathways Institute)
Richard Levin (Land Claims Court South Africa) Mnqobi Ngubane (University of Johannesburg)
Mnqobi Ngubane (University of Johannesburg)