Regional Development in Rural Malaysia and the ‘Tribal Question’

2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zawawi Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Regional Development ◽  
Rural Society ◽  
Economic Anthropology ◽  
Orang Asli ◽  
Peasant Studies ◽  
Agrarian Question

In the field of research and studies pertaining to Malaysian rural society, there has traditionally been a dominant emphasis, especially by local scholars, on the analysis of the indigenous Malay peasantry rather than on the equally indigenous ‘tribal’ minorities, i.e. the Orang Asli. This has also meant that the new theoretical directions and perspectives developed in the various interrelated fields (such as ‘the New Economic Anthropology’, ‘Peasant Studies’, and Political Economy, including the Neo-Marxist School of Development and Underdevelopment) have been applied with rigour only to those issues arising from ‘the peasant question’ in Malaysia. To date, no scholars have as yet seriously attempted to address ‘the agrarian question’ in the context of Malaysian society by also incorporating in their theoretical analysis the position of its ‘tribal’ minorities.

Gift Exchange as Narrative and Metaphor

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 229-252
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Gift Exchange ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Economic Anthropology ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Commodity Exchange ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Characteristic Features

The article deals with characteristic features of economic anthropology"s rhetoric of reciprocity and analyzes the factors that affected its formation. The authors consider two principal interpretations of reciprocity in economic anthropology that were formed under the influence of its two main founders - Malinowski and Mauss. The characteristic features of their two types of rhetoric are discussed together with the purposes for which they were used. Two different intentions were pivotal for the work of these researchers and their followers: first, to establish economic anthropology as a positivistic science; and second, to use the analysis of archaic societies as evidence for their critique of a capitalistic economy.To achieve the first task they actively used rhetoric borrowed from the natural sciences, and especially from biology as well as from economic theories that were another social science also striving for a more rigorous positivism. For the second task they turned to the rhetoric of political economy and used arguments based on a dialectical opposition between commodity exchange and gift exchange. The most prominent example of such dialectical rhetoric is in the works of Chris Gregory and Karl Polanyi in which gift exchange was interpreted as a metaphor for a utopian alternative to capitalistic commodity exchange. Because the rhetoric of economic anthropology from its inception to the present has been profoundly influenced by the language of general economic theory, the article examines the genesis of the rhetoric of economics as a science. This leads to an analysis of how the language of economics was affected by the rhetoric of the natural sciences, then of psychology and finally of law.

scholarly journals Questão agrária: capitalismo e proletarização rural no Brasil | Agrarian question: capitalism and rural proletarization in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Amilton de Almeida ◽  
Cristina Simões Bezerra
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Social Conflicts ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
Agrarian Question ◽  
Ellen Wood ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Marxist Tradition

O objeto desse estudo trata-se da questão agrária no Brasil. O objetivo principal consistiu em analisar as determinações agrárias que nos envolvem no quadro das transformações universais do capital, precisamente aquelas que dizem respeito ao processo de proletarização rural. Para isso, partimos da análise de Marx sobre a acumulação primitiva, com contribuições de Ellen Wood e de outras referências da tradição marxista, dentre as quais intérpretes da realidade nacional, tomadas como fios condutores à apreensão do papel que cumpre à questão agrária na estruturação do capitalismo brasileiro. A metodologia baseou-se, principalmente, em pesquisa bibliográfica e análise teórica, cujos resultados nos levam a considerar a economia capitalista agrária brasileira como uma das principais responsáveis pela difusão das desigualdades e dos conflitos sociais de nossos tempos.Palavras-Chave: acumulação primitiva; questão agrária; proletariado rural; capitalismo. Abstract – The agrarian question in Brazil is the object of this study, whose main objective was to analyze the agrarian determinations that involve us in the framework of the universal transformations of capital, specifically those that concern the process of rural proletarization. For this, we start with Marx’s analysis of primitive accumulation, with contributions by Ellen Wood of other references of the Marxist tradition, among which interpreters of the national situation, taken as guiding principles to the understading of the agrarian question in the structuring of Brazilian capitalism. The methodology was based mainly on bibliographical research and theoretical analysis, whose results led us to consider the Brazilian agrarian capitalist economy as one of the main responsible for the propagation of inequalities and social conflicts in our times.Keywords: primitive accumulation; agrarian question; rural proletariat; capitalism.

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