networkideas.org - Call for papers for Special Issue titled 'Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization?', Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy.

Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy invites articles for its Special Issue to be published in December 2013, on ''Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization?''. The deadline for receipt of manuscripts is 10 June 2013. Manuscript submissions should adhere to journal styles (see http://ags.sagepub.com/) and not exceed 8,000 words. All manuscripts will be subject to peer review. Abstracts of 150 words should be sent in advance for early feedback. For inquiries and submissions, please contact the Editors at agrariansouth@gmail.com.

Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization?

The multiple crises that are unfolding in the twenty-first century, from the economic, to those of climate, energy, and food, will persist and deepen, and challenge generations to come. The crises are unique in their complexity, while the challenge they pose is nothing less than rebuilding a world system that respects the sovereignty of nations, promotes the equitable and sustainable use of natural resources, and re-orients development away from Eurocentric modernization.

The dominant Western model of development projected after the Second World War conceived of economic growth and prosperity as a process of stages. Aided by Western technology, credit, and strategic protection, and supported by a benevolent state, this was to lead to a modernity defined by technological advance, industrialization, urbanization, and mass consumption. Contending models of modernity also existed, most notably the Soviet and the Chinese. The former differed mainly in its emphasis on autonomy from Western monopolies, not its basic vision of modernity. The Chinese model differed more substantively, by defending a peasant path to industrialization, balance between town and country, and an external autonomy reinforced by internal balance. This was the quintessential case of a modernity seen through the eyes of the peasantry.

None of these three models survived the Cold War intact. As neoliberalism spread throughout the system, the Soviet model came undone, the Chinese was coopted, though not defeated, and the Western model was undermined by its underlying capitalist logic. In the 1980s, aspects of the original Western model were demoted, especially the state as a planning institution and industrialization as a goal for all nations. But development under Western firms, finance, and strategic protection was retained as an ideal and reinforced in the 1990s, as were urbanization and mass consumption of an ever more individualized character. The latter element has now also suffered a severe setback, by the dramatic spending cuts and burgeoning unemployment that have struck the centers of the system, following the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, Western monopolies have been entering a phase of contestation by ''emerging'' countries in the South; this remains contradictory in its dynamics, including the role played by China, which has embarked on a new path of industrialization and rural-urban migration. Yet, it is clear that the original Western model is a mere shadow of its past. The question remains whether there will emerge a new relation of forces to contest Western monopolies effectively and, moreover, to overcome the idea that modernity requires a rural exodus.

This Special Issue intends to initiate a systematic debate on 'the return to the countryside'. To be sure, the rural exodus continues unabated, swelling the ranks of populations in flux, as formal employment continues to dwindle and peasant production is further squeezed. This has led many to argue that 'de-peasantization' is a social fact, and that it should be supported by public policies which promote the diversification of petty economic activities among those expelled from peasant and formal employment. A contrary position has argued that nowhere in the South has the rural exodus yielded permanent urbanization, but an indeterminate process of semi-proletarianization among societies straddling peasant production and varieties of self- and salaried employment. Thus, what is required is an agrarian transformation which rebuilds agriculture and promotes food sovereignty and new inter-sectoral relations on a more autonomous and sustainable basis. New rural movements have also been staking such a claim since the 1990s, by occupying land and recuperating peasant production, and these have been joined by urban movements similarly staking claims to land on the margins of towns. It appears that there are today, more than ever before, objective conditions, among diverse societies across Africa, Asia and Latin America, for the elaboration of policies with popular appeal for a return to the countryside on new terms.

The global crisis presently unfolding has been experienced in more profound ways among the countries of the South that were forced to adjust to the adversities of their external economic environment, well before the crisis struck the centre. And among these countries, economic crisis amplified their energy and food crises, and also synergized adversely with the local effects of global climate change. These serial national crises may be taken as reasonable indicators of things to come, as the global crisis deepens and its effects are felt more immediately throughout the system.

In a number of cases across the South, beyond China, a new thinking on the countryside has been evolving and new policies put in place from a peasant-friendly perspective. A consensus is emerging, slowly but surely, that development requires the re-building of agriculture, so as to make the countryside viable for a dignified life for larger populations and to transform it into a basic element of national sovereignty, via food production for domestic consumption and new synergies with domestic industries. The factors which have been driving such policies are diverse. In countries which have embarked on a path of radical nationalism, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, and Nepal, the driving force has been the recognition that food and energy dependence, and monopolistic control over land and natural resources by foreign capital and racial/caste minorities, are contrary to national sovereignty. And in these cases, the agrarian question has once again become a national question, a land question, and a peasant question.

The fuller meaning of 're-peasantization' has not yet revealed itself. Indeed, it is still early days. It remains in dispute even in the countries above, on a series of issues such as land tenure, appropriate technology, sustainability, cooperative production, markets, state support, relations with industry, and not least gender relations, given that the return to the countryside can imply neither a return to an idyllic past nor a regression to patriarchy.

It is important to consider other forms in which a return to the countryside, or to agriculture more generally, has been underway. Among the newcomers to this scenario are urbanites in the North, such as in Detroit, once the 'Motown' of the world, whose de-industrialized citizenry has rediscovered farming, or in Southern Europe whose new unemployed are beginning to make their way back to the villages of their grandparents. Moreover, there is a growing number of other countries in the South which are experimenting with policies intended to support peasant production for the domestic market, among which Brazil has claimed a leading role. At the same time, the question of 're-peasantization' is being contested by a wider array of forces led by finance capital and multinational firms, and including governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations, which strive to lock in peasant production to new 'green' technologies – all the while they participate directly or indirectly in the scramble for peasant land.

Be it as it may at the level of official policy, the social agency for urban and rural land, and re-peasantization as a political project, will continue to gain strength and remain among the key forms and processes of resistance in the world system. This is a social force which has the unique potential to shift the relation of forces over the long term and create space for a wider range of reflections on development in the twenty-first century.

The Editorial Board of Agrarian South hopes that interested researchers, from both North and South, will engage with this turn of events in development theory and policy and offer conceptually rigorous and empirically-based research, towards a more coherent debate on an issue which will likely define the whole of the century. Articles may explore such issues as:

theoretical approaches to re-peasantization, agrarian transformation, and world-systemic transition;
local, national, and regional experiences of re-peasantization;
land reform, land tenure, and cooperativism;
agrarian change, inter-sectoral linkages, and structural transformation;
the state and regional institutions in agrarian transformation;
production systems and relations of production and reproduction: rural-urban, gender, and class;
productive resources: land, energy, and technology;
the new politics of social movements and international organizations.

March 8, 2013.



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Call for papers for Special Issue titled 'Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization?', Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy.

Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy invites articles for its Special Issue to be published in December 2013, on ''Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization?''. The deadline for receipt of manuscripts is 10 June 2013. Manuscript submissions should adhere to journal styles (see http://ags.sagepub.com/) and not exceed 8,000 words. All manuscripts will be subject to peer review. Abstracts of 150 words should be sent in advance for early feedback. For inquiries and submissions, please contact the Editors at agrariansouth@gmail.com. Global Crisis and Agrarian Transformation: What Future for Re-peasantization? The multiple crises that are unfolding in the twenty-first century, from the economic, to those of climate, energy, and food, will persist and deepen, and challenge generations to come. The crises are unique in their complexity, while the challenge they pose is nothing less than rebuilding a world system that respects the sovereignty of nations, promotes the equitable and sustainable use of natural resources, and re-orients development away from Eurocentric modernization. The dominant Western model of development projected after the Second World War conceived of economic growth and prosperity as a process of stages. Aided by Western technology, credit, and strategic protection, and supported by a benevolent state, this was to lead to a modernity defined by technological advance, industrialization, urbanization, and mass consumption. Contending models of modernity also existed, most notably the Soviet and the Chinese. The former differed mainly in its emphasis on autonomy from Western monopolies, not its basic vision of modernity. The Chinese model differed more substantively, by defending a peasant path to industrialization, balance between town and country, and an external autonomy reinforced by internal balance. This was the quintessential case of a modernity seen through the eyes of the peasantry. None of these three models survived the Cold War intact. As neoliberalism spread throughout the system, the Soviet model came undone, the Chinese was coopted, though not defeated, and the Western model was undermined by its underlying capitalist logic. In the 1980s, aspects of the original Western model were demoted, especially the state as a planning institution and industrialization as a goal for all nations. But development under Western firms, finance, and strategic protection was retained as an ideal and reinforced in the 1990s, as were urbanization and mass consumption of an ever more individualized character. The latter element has now also suffered a severe setback, by the dramatic spending cuts and burgeoning unemployment that have struck the centers of the system, following the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, Western monopolies have been entering a phase of contestation by ''emerging'' countries in the South; this remains contradictory in its dynamics, including the role played by China, which has embarked on a new path of industrialization and rural-urban migration. Yet, it is clear that the original Western model is a mere shadow of its past. The question remains whether there will emerge a new relation of forces to contest Western monopolies effectively and, moreover, to overcome the idea that modernity requires a rural exodus. This Special Issue intends to initiate a systematic debate on 'the return to the countryside'. To be sure, the rural exodus continues unabated, swelling the ranks of populations in flux, as formal employment continues to dwindle and peasant production is further squeezed. This has led many to argue that 'de-peasantization' is a social fact, and that it should be supported by public policies which promote the diversification of petty economic activities among those expelled from peasant and formal employment. A contrary position has argued that nowhere in the South has the rural exodus yielded permanent urbanization, but an indeterminate process of semi-proletarianization among societies straddling peasant production and varieties of self- and salaried employment. Thus, what is required is an agrarian transformation which rebuilds agriculture and promotes food sovereignty and new inter-sectoral relations on a more autonomous and sustainable basis. New rural movements have also been staking such a claim since the 1990s, by occupying land and recuperating peasant production, and these have been joined by urban movements similarly staking claims to land on the margins of towns. It appears that there are today, more than ever before, objective conditions, among diverse societies across Africa, Asia and Latin America, for the elaboration of policies with popular appeal for a return to the countryside on new terms. The global crisis presently unfolding has been experienced in more profound ways among the countries of the South that were forced to adjust to the adversities of their external economic environment, well before the crisis struck the centre. And among these countries, economic crisis amplified their energy and food crises, and also synergized adversely with the local effects of global climate change. These serial national crises may be taken as reasonable indicators of things to come, as the global crisis deepens and its effects are felt more immediately throughout the system. In a number of cases across the South, beyond China, a new thinking on the countryside has been evolving and new policies put in place from a peasant-friendly perspective. A consensus is emerging, slowly but surely, that development requires the re-building of agriculture, so as to make the countryside viable for a dignified life for larger populations and to transform it into a basic element of national sovereignty, via food production for domestic consumption and new synergies with domestic industries. The factors which have been driving such policies are diverse. In countries which have embarked on a path of radical nationalism, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, and Nepal, the driving force has been the recognition that food and energy dependence, and monopolistic control over land and natural resources by foreign capital and racial/caste minorities, are contrary to national sovereignty. And in these cases, the agrarian question has once again become a national question, a land question, and a peasant question. The fuller meaning of 're-peasantization' has not yet revealed itself. Indeed, it is still early days. It remains in dispute even in the countries above, on a series of issues such as land tenure, appropriate technology, sustainability, cooperative production, markets, state support, relations with industry, and not least gender relations, given that the return to the countryside can imply neither a return to an idyllic past nor a regression to patriarchy. It is important to consider other forms in which a return to the countryside, or to agriculture more generally, has been underway. Among the newcomers to this scenario are urbanites in the North, such as in Detroit, once the 'Motown' of the world, whose de-industrialized citizenry has rediscovered farming, or in Southern Europe whose new unemployed are beginning to make their way back to the villages of their grandparents. Moreover, there is a growing number of other countries in the South which are experimenting with policies intended to support peasant production for the domestic market, among which Brazil has claimed a leading role. At the same time, the question of 're-peasantization' is being contested by a wider array of forces led by finance capital and multinational firms, and including governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations, which strive to lock in peasant production to new 'green' technologies – all the while they participate directly or indirectly in the scramble for peasant land. Be it as it may at the level of official policy, the social agency for urban and rural land, and re-peasantization as a political project, will continue to gain strength and remain among the key forms and processes of resistance in the world system. This is a social force which has the unique potential to shift the relation of forces over the long term and create space for a wider range of reflections on development in the twenty-first century. The Editorial Board of Agrarian South hopes that interested researchers, from both North and South, will engage with this turn of events in development theory and policy and offer conceptually rigorous and empirically-based research, towards a more coherent debate on an issue which will likely define the whole of the century. Articles may explore such issues as: theoretical approaches to re-peasantization, agrarian transformation, and world-systemic transition; local, national, and regional experiences of re-peasantization; land reform, land tenure, and cooperativism; agrarian change, inter-sectoral linkages, and structural transformation; the state and regional institutions in agrarian transformation; production systems and relations of production and reproduction: rural-urban, gender, and class; productive resources: land, energy, and technology; the new politics of social movements and international organizations. March 8, 2013.

© International Development Economics Associates 2013