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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Land, natural resources and the social reproduction of South Africa's ‘relative surplus population’
(John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2024)In the past few decades, there has been a renewed interest by feminist scholars in social reproduction. Global South scholars have argued that in agrarian societies of the global South that are marked by a high prevalence ... -
Land commoning in deagrarianized contexts: Potentials for agroecology?
(University of California Press, 2024)Amid socially and ecologically failing food systems, land commoning has been proposed as a pathway to align food systems with agroecology and food sovereignty. This article aims to contribute to nascent understandings of ... -
Governance and conservation effectiveness in protected areas and indigenous and locally managed areas
(2023)Increased conservation action to protect more habitat and species is fueling a vigorous debate about the relative effectiveness of different sorts of protected areas. Here we review the literature that compares the ... -
Governance and conservation effectiveness in protected areas and indigenous and locally managed areas
(Annual Reviews Inc., 2023)Increased conservation action to protect more habitat and species is fueling a vigorous debate about the relative effectiveness of different sorts of protected areas. Here we review the literature that compares the ... -
Smallholder Views on Chinese Agricultural Investments in Mozambique and Tanzania in the Context of VGGTs
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (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 ... -
The gendered nature of household decision making and expenditure choices in the context of smallholder agricultural commercialization in Malawi
(BMC, 2024)Background The push towards commercialization is driven by the modernization paradigm which argues that traditional subsistence farming is backward and primitive. Despite commercialization having the potential to enhance ... -
Digital technology in Zambian agriculture: a scoping report
(University of the Western Cape, 2024)Digital technologies in agriculture have been identified as a game changer in agrifood systems (IFPRI, 2020). Policy makers, researchers and corporate interests make claims about how digital technologies in agriculture are ... -
Digital technology in Kenyan agriculture: a scoping report
(University of the Western Cape, 2024)Recent developments in Kenya’s agriculture have seen a steady emergence of experimentations with a wide range of digital solutions targeting smallholder farmers. The inspirations driving these innovations and application ... -
Digital tech in African agriculture: livelihoods, climate change and food system transformation
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, 2023)Background: The digital revolution in global agriculture has begun and this includes digital technology in African agriculture. We now see the use of a variety of digital tools on the continent, such as drones, precision ... -
Digital tech in African agriculture: the case of German actors
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, 2024)This study examines German actors involved in the digitalisation of agriculture in Africa. In order to understand the underlying structures, a typology was developed on the basis of literature. This typology was then applied ... -
Digital technology in Kenyan agriculture: a scoping report
(University of the Western Cape, 2024)Recent developments in Kenya’s agriculture have seen a steady emergence of experimentations with a wide range of digital solutions targeting smallholder farmers. The inspirations driving these innovations and application ... -
Digital technology in Zambian agriculture: a scoping report
(University of the Western Cape, 2024)Digital technologies in agriculture have been identified as a game changer in agrifood systems (IFPRI, 2020). Policy makers, researchers and corporate interests make claims about how digital technologies in agriculture are ... -
The constitution’s mandate for transformation From ‘expropriation without compensation’ to ‘equitable access to land’
(Cambridge University Press, 2024)Expropriation without compensation’ (EWC) is a politically potent and simultaneously ambiguous term. It is politically potent not despite but precisely because of its ambiguity, in that it signals a radical departure from ... -
Strategic and Reflective Report: PLAAS 2021-2022
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies: PLAAS, 2022)This biennial report offers an account of PLAAS during a time of challenge and transition. If 2020 was the Year of the Pandemic, then 2021-2022 ushered in the Years of the New (ab)Normal. In 2020, attention was almost ... -
Critical agrarian studies in the 21st century
(University of the Western Cape, 2023)Prof Ye Jingzhong welcomed participants. Prof Lin Wanglong, vice president of China Agricultural University, gave a welcoming speech on behalf of CAU. Prof Ruth Hall welcomed everyone and thanked COHD and CAU, on behalf ... -
Climate change and agrarian justice
(University of the Western Cape, 2022)Three papers formed the focus of this session. Zehra Yaţın et al presented on the environmentalisation of the agrarian question and the agrarianisation of the climate justice movement. Noemi Gonda et al presented on ... -
Global land deals: What has been done, what has changed, and what’s next?
(The Land Deal Politics Initiative, 2024)In 2010, the Land Deals Politics Initiative formed to study the rising number of large-scale land deals taking place around the world. As the so-called ‘global land grab’ took shape, we organised small grant competitions ... -
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 ...