Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
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The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management. It is committed to social change that empowers the poor, builds democracy and enhances sustainable livelihoods.
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Transforming critical agrarian studies: Solidarity, scholar-activism and emancipatory agendas in and from the Global South
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)This paper examines the challenges and opportunities faced bycritical agrarian scholars in and from the Global South. We arguethat despite the historical and structural limitations, the criticaljuncture of convergence of ... -
Elite capture in South Africa’s land redistribution: The convergence of policy bias, corrupt practices and class dynamics
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)Land reforms are an important mechanism for addressing inequalities in society. Whileaddressing South Africa’s racialised land inequalities remains crucial, new forms of classinequality are produced through land reform, ... -
Intertwined histories: JPS at 50, La Via Campesina at 30
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)The Journal of Peasant Studies was founded 50 years ago, in 1973, amidst an oil price crisis, the end of the gold standard and the beginning of the debt crisis, an agrarian famine in Bangladesh, and what some consider the ... -
The voices of smallholders and women in Tanzania’s agricultural corridor
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)The Tanzanian government created the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) with the vision of modernising and commercialising agriculture in Tanzania and thereby bringing about a ‘green revolution’. However, ... -
Agricultural investment corridors in Africa: Making the voices of women and smallholder farmers count
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)Development corridors can improve livelihood opportunities for people living in far-flung areas – but only if they focus on smallholder farming, pastoralism, fishing, and infrastructure for small-scale trade. Land rights ... -
The voices of women and smallholder farmers in Kenya’s Lamu Corridor
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)The Lamu Corridor Project in Kenya promises to develop infrastructure to connect a vast area covering Northern Kenya, South Sudan, and Southern Ethiopia with global markets. Driven mainly by oil and mineral transport ... -
The voices of women and smallholder farmers in Angola’s Lobito Corridor
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)The development of the Benguela railway in the Lobito Development Corridor links Angola’s interior with its coastal port of Luanda. This corridor has boosted the mobility of the poor, as well as professionals –teachers, ... -
The voices of women and smallholder farmers in Mozambique’s Beira and Nacala corridors
(UWC PLAAS, 2023)Over the past two decades, the Beira and Nacala agricultural corridors have attracted capital investment and technology transfer. However, the flow of both has been unpredictable as they depend on the intervention of ... -
Should subsistence agriculture be supported as a strategy to address rural food insecurity?
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2009)At first glance South Africa’s black farming sector appears to contribute rather minimally to overall agricultural output in South Africa. However, despite the complexity involved in this sector and the often marginal ... -
Lockdown, resilience and emergency statecraft in the Cape Town food system
(Cities, 2022)Well before the Covid-19 pandemic, rapidly growing cities of the global South were at the epicenter of multiple converging crises affecting food systems. Globally, government lockdown responses to the disease triggered ... -
Life on the land: New lives for agrarian questions
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023)The politics of food, climate, energy, and the yet unfinished work ofending colonialism run square through questions of land. Theclassical agrarian question has taken on new forms, and a newintensity. We look at four ... -
Intra-party cohesion in Zimbabwe’s ruling party after Robert Mugabe
(Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2023)Some mainstream political scientists apply the trilogy of exit, voice and loyalty in studying intra-party cohesion. This approach applies more neatly in liberal than in repressive contexts. I therefore make three modifications ... -
Smallholder views on Chinese agricultural investments in Mozambique and Tanzania in the context of VGGTS
(MDPI, 2023)Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land ... -
Resisting agrarian neoliberalism and authoritarianism: Struggles towards a progressive rural future in Mozambique
(Wiley, 2022)After nearly two and a half decades with a Land Law widely considered progressive, Mozambique is preparing to revise its legal framework for land. Land activists accuse the government of pursuing an authoritarian approach, ... -
Covid-19 Impacts: Household Food Production, Agroecology, Rural Livelihoods and Alternative Food Systems
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
Building leaders for the UN Ocean Science Decade: A guide to supporting early career women researchers within academic marine research institutions
(Oxford University Press, 2023)Diverse and inclusive marine science is now recognized as essential for addressing the complex and accelerating challenges facing marine social-ecological systems (Blythe and Cvitanovic, 2020; Lawless et al., 2021). The ... -
Changing customary land tenure regimes in Zambia, implications for women’s land rights
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03)This paper argues that the formalisation of customary land through a rural certification programme in Nyimba District, Zambia, has triggered the establishment of a new tenure regime that transcends the dualism between ... -
Securing Tenure for Customary Land Rights Holders in Southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-02) -
The Land and Its People: the land question and the South African political order
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2023-03)This paper examines the disjuncture between the discourses of policy deliberation and contentious politics in debates about ‘the land question’ in South Africa. It argues that the South African land debate as it unfolds ... -
Gender, generation and the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976
(Wiley, 2013)This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in theCiskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oraltestimonies of elderly residents ...