Research Articles (PLAAS)
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Bureaucrats, investors and smallholders: contesting land rights and agro-commercialisation in the Southern agricultural growth corridor of Tanzania
(Taylor & Francis, 2020)Since the triple crises of food, fuel and finance of 2007/8, investments in agricultural growth corridors have taken centrestage in government, donor and private sector initiatives. This article examines the politics of ... -
Changing livelihoods in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa (2002–2016): Diminishing employment and expanding social protection
(Taylor & Francis, 2020)This is evident in South Africa’s former ‘homelands’, the site where this study examined changes in rural livelihoods over a 14-year period. Detailed survey data (collected in 2002 and 2016) from two villages in the Pondoland ... -
Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
(Elsevier, 2019)Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, natural resource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness ... -
Improving policy coherence for food security and nutrition in South Africa: a qualitative policy analysis
(Springer Netherlands, 2018)Like most other low and middle-income countries, South Africa must address a rising burden of diet-related chronic disease in a situation of persistent food insecurity and undernutrition. Supply-side policy interventions ... -
Gender, politics and sugarcane commercialisation in Tanzania
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2019)This article explores relationships between state, corporate capital and local stakeholders in the political economy of sugarcane from a gender perspective. The findings, based on empirical research at the site of Tanzania’s ... -
Training of trainers module for gender sensitive community engagement in large scale land based investments in agriculture
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019)WHY THIS TRAINING OF TRAINERS (ToT) MODULE? In 2013, the African Union (AU) commissioned an assessment study on the occurrence of large-scale land-based investments in agriculture (LSLBI). The study was commissioned under ... -
The vampire squid: Value, crisis and the power of finance
(Wiley, 2019)Over the last five decades the power and global reach of financial institutions and finance capital to organize economic, social and political life has grown seemingly unchecked. This is manifested in the ability of ... -
Support for smallholder farmers in South Africa: Challenges of scale and strategy
(Routledge, 2012)The South African Government aims to expand the smallholder sector as part of its broader job creation strategy. However, research shows that government attempts to support smallholder farmers have generally been costly ... -
Elite capture and state neglect: new evidence on South Africa’s land reform
(Routledge, 2017)South Africa’s land reform is in flux – and, arguably, in crisis. We argue here that the widespread criticism of its slow pace fails to capture the extent of this crisis. Our argument follows from that of Lionel Cliffe ... -
Without the blanket of the land: agrarian change and biopolitics in post–Apartheid South Africa
(Routledge, 2018)This paper connects Marxist approaches to the agrarian political economy of South Africa with post-Marshallian and Foucauldian analyses of distributional regimes and late capitalist governmentality. Looking at South ... -
Without the blanket of the land: agrarian change and biopolitics in post–Apartheid South Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2018)This paper connects Marxist approaches to the agrarian political economy of South Africa with post-Marshallian and Foucauldian analyses of distributional regimes and late capitalist governmentality. Looking at South Africa’s ... -
Social reproduction of ‘classes of labour’ in the rural areas of South Africa: contradictions and contestations
(Taylor & Francis, 2018)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 undertheorised. These are explored through ... -
Emancipatory rural politics: confronting authoritarian populism
(Taylor & Francis, 2016)A new political moment is underway. Although there are significant differences in how this is constituted in different places, one manifestation of the new moment is the rise of distinct forms of authoritarian populism. ... -
Class dynamics in contract farming: the case of tobacco production in Mozambique
(Taylor & Francis, 2016)This paper examines the class relations emerging in a contract farming scheme in Mozambique. Debates in the literature about contract farming characterise this market arrangement as leading to farmers losing control over ... -
The rise of BRICS: implications for global agrarian transformation
(Taylor & Francis, 2016)This article introduces this collection, which focuses on the economic and political rise of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and its implications for global agrarian transformation. ... -
The impact of land property rights interventions on investment and agricultural productivity in developing countries: a systematic review
(Taylor & Francis, 2017)We conducted a systematic review on the effects of land tenure recognition interventions on agricultural productivity, income, investment and other relevant outcomes. We synthesise findings from 20 quantitative studies and ... -
[En]gendering the norms of customary inheritance in Botswana and South Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2016)The article responds to the article by Weinberg in this issue. She traces the trajectory of court hearings concerning the contested inheritance of land in Botswana, which, after several prior judgements eventually resulted ... -
Creating learning and action space in South Africa’s post-apartheid land redistribution program
(SAGE Publications, 2017)This paper uses the case of South Africa’s latest land redistribution strategy known as the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy, to explore whether, and how, research can have direct and positive impacts on beneficiaries ... -
Land and agricultural commercialisation in Meru County, Kenya: evidence from three models
(Taylor & Francis, 2017)What are the relative pros and cons of different pathways of agricultural commercialisation in Africa? This paper examines aspects of three commercial farming cases, each of which represents one of the three most dominant ...
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