Direct democracy in mining conflicts in Latin America: mobilising against the La Colosa project in ColombiaDietz, Kristina
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1467830pmid: N/A
This article examines the conditions under which popular consultations serve as a means of protest against mining and the socio-political effects that result. Building on empirical research into the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia, the analysis is rooted in social movement studies and democracy theory. It shows that the use of popular consultations is enabled by long-term political-institutional changes and short-term changes in structural conditions. The outcomes range from changes in project design to political agenda setting, and the opening of spaces for participation and public debate.
Religion and female empowerment: evidence from Pakistan and northern NigeriaBano, Masooda
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1470967pmid: N/A
Development theory and practice identify religious conviction as a challenge to female empowerment. Drawing on a new dataset on girls from madrasas and secular schools in Pakistan and northern Nigeria, and on ethnographic fieldwork, this article problematises this assumption. The data show various levels of commitment to pursuing a professional career among Muslim girls with equally high levels of religious conviction. Further, stronger career commitment is correlated with socio-economic and cultural factors other than religion. Female empowerment might be more effectively supported by aid investments in female education, employment opportunities and media access than by campaigns aimed at reforming religious norms.
The myth of the global middle class, globalisation’s fallback success storyKnauss, Steve
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2019.1520692pmid: N/A
On the defensive in recent years, advocates of globalisation have taken to highlighting achievements in developing countries, where globalisation has supposedly pulled the majority out of poverty and catapulted them into the swelling “global middle class” remaking our world. This article provides a critical look at this interpretation. Carefully reviewing the global income distribution data behind such claims, it presents original calculations that generate new stylised facts for the globalisation era. More broadly, it argues for a more socio-historical approach that is better situated to discover the dynamics of class formation in our time.
Land grabbing in Uruguay: new forms of land concentrationOyhantçabal, Gabriel; Narbondo, Ignacio
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1524749pmid: N/A
This article contributes to the global discussion on land grabbing with a study of the Uruguayan case. With focus on the phenomenon’s presence, magnitude, forms and causes, we identified intensification in the historical land concentration process headed by large-scale agrarian companies. This process is characterised both by qualitative and quantitative changes. Quantitative because it intensified land concentration by displacing family farmers and also part of the agrarian bourgeoisie; and qualitative because it caused the emergence of institutional landownership as a result of appropriation of ground rent and investment in land to hoard value and valorise assets.
Generational transmission of smallholder farms in late capitalismCassidy, Anne; Srinivasan, Sharada; White, Ben
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2019.1592744pmid: N/A
Despite contextual differences, the future of smallholder farming faces many similar challenges worldwide. This introduction to the special section previews case studies from Australia, Austria, Ireland and Japan of generational transmission of smallholder farms in late capitalism. It frames key issues in the generational reproduction of smallholder farming, combining perspectives from agrarian studies and youth studies. The cases include intrafamilial succession and extrafamilial transmission to “newcomer” farmers. Intergenerational farm transfers are a two-way interaction between the older and the younger generations, in which neither fully controls the process.
Female successors in Irish family farming: four pathways to farm transferCassidy, Anne
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1517643pmid: N/A
This article focuses on potential female successors and family landholding in the Irish farming community. Four case studies are drawn on to explore the dynamics surrounding female succession. Four distinct possibilities emerged for how the landholding could be transferred and used: lease of the land by the successor, who acts as a landholder; the development of a business that draws on the farm’s resources; personal farming of the land; and sale of the land. It is suggested that the changing nature of succession will lead to a reimagining of what it means to succeed and the possibilities arising from this.
Agrarian pathways for the next generation of Japanese farmersMcGreevy, Steven R.; Kobayashi, Mai; Tanaka, Keiko
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1517642pmid: N/A
Japanese agriculture and rural communities are in decline and fewer young people are becoming farmers. Young heritage farmers and a new generation from non-farming families face multiple barriers to pursue farming as their profession or way of life. Using mixed methods, we examine cases of new farmers establishing themselves in Kyoto and Nagano, Japan. We uncover and analyse a set of representative pathways travelled by new farmers and the social and economic pitfalls they must navigate. The local community is found to play a critical role in the progression of farmers along pathways into agriculture.
Extrafamilial farm succession: an adaptive strategy contributing to the renewal of peasantries in AustriaKorzenszky, Anna
doi: 10.1080/02255189.2018.1517301pmid: N/A
This article examines extrafamilial farm transmission, a process that brings together elderly farmers without successors and young people who aspire to farm but face various economic, social and cultural barriers to enter into the sector. First-hand accounts of the process from Austrian smallholders are systematically analysed to produce a stage-by-stage model. The multigenerational non-familial agrarian partnership this represents offers an alternative mechanism for maintaining small-scale food production and improving food security and food sovereignty. It is recommended as an adaptive strategy for the survival and re-generation of peasantry in the twenty-first century.