scholarly journals Introduction: Peasants, Pastoralists and Proletarians: Joining the Debates on Trajectories of Agrarian Change, Livelihoods and Land USE

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent McCusker ◽  
Paul O'Keefe ◽  
Phil O'Keefe ◽  
Geoff O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Agrarian Change ◽  
Dry Land ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
Agrarian Studies ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
Production Of Nature

Recent changes in the agrarian studies and geography literatures present differing views on the pace and trajectory of change in rural developing areas. In this special section of Human Geography, we contrast the theoretical and practice implications of these differing approaches, namely depeasantization, accumulation by dispossession and deproletarianization. Depeasantization refers to change in livelihood activities out of agriculture, long theorized as necessary for an area's transition into capitalism. Accumulation by dispossession is a process of on-going capital accumulation where a give resource is privatized, seized, or in some other manner alienated from common ownership in order to provide a basis for continued capital accumulation. Deproletarianization occurs when workers are no longer able to freely commodify and recommodify their only commodity, their own labour. In this section, we explore these three theses with case studies that draw upon empirical data. The papers in this collection all speak to one aspect or another of these debates. We do not intend to try to determine a “best approach”, rather we explore strengths and weaknesses of each argument. The production of nature, change in the mode of production and the political economy of nature are discussed in the first article by Brent McCusker. Phil O'Keefe and Geoff O'Brien examine the evolution of worked landscape under pre-capitalist modes of production in riverine ecologies. Through further case studies, Paul O'Keefe explores links between livelihoods and climate change in Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, while Franklin Graham explores the persistence of pastoralism in the Sahel. Finally, Naomi Shanguhyia and Brent McCusker examine the process of governance in dry land Kenya through the study of chronic food shortages.

scholarly journals Reversing Channels and Unsettling Binaries: Rethinking Migration and Agrarian Change under Expanded Border and Immigration Enforcement

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Richard L. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Central America ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Agrarian Change ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Agrarian Studies ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Migrant Groups

Unauthorized migration under global regimes of border and immigration enforcement has become more risky and costly than ever. Despite the increasing challenges of reaching, remaining in, and remitting from destination countries, scholarship exploring the implications of migration for agricultural and environmental change in migrant-sending regions has largely overlooked the prevalent experiences and consequences of “failed” migration. Drawing from recent fieldwork in Central America with deportees, this paper demonstrates how contemporary migration at times reverses the “channels” of agrarian change in migrant-sending regions: instead of driving remittance inflow and labor loss, migration under contemporary enforcement can result in debt and asset dispossession, increased vulnerability, and heightened labor exploitation. Diverse migration outcomes under expanded enforcement also reveal a need to move beyond the analytical binary that emphasizes differentiations between migrant and non-migrant groups while overlooking the profound socioeconomic unevenness experienced among migrants themselves. With grounding in critical agrarian studies, feminist geographies, and emerging political ecologies of migration, this paper argues that increased attention to the highly dynamic and diverse lived experiences of migration under expanded enforcement stands to enhance our understanding of the multiple ways in which contemporary out-migration shapes livelihoods and landscapes in migrant-sending regions.

Word, Image, Sound

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-152
Author(s):  
Matthew Engelke
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Religion ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This essay introduces the special section “Word, Image, Sound,” a collection of essays on public religion and religious publicities in Africa and South Asia. The essays cover case studies in Myanmar, Zambia, Senegal, Rwanda, and Egypt. The introduction situates the essays in relation to the broader fields of work on the public sphere and publics, especially as they relate to recent work in the human sciences that focus on materiality, the senses, and media.

Introduction to special section: Shale oil and gas enrichment mechanisms and effective development: Concepts, methodologies, and case studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. SNi-SNiii
Author(s):  
Dengliang Gao ◽  
Zhijun Jin ◽  
Taizhong Duan ◽  
Hongliu Zeng ◽  
Satinder Chopra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Shale Oil ◽  
Effective Development

Introduction to this special section: Seismic imaging below complex overburdens

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 322-323
Author(s):  
Eric Duveneck ◽  
Michael Kiehn
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Seismic Imaging ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Shallow Gas ◽  
Imaging Algorithm ◽  
Model Acquisition

Despite decades of technology development and experience, seismic imaging below complex overburdens, such as salt bodies, basalt flows, or shallow gas accumulations, remains a challenge. For successful imaging in such settings, a number of key elements need to be in place: the overburden complexity needs to be properly captured and represented in the subsurface model (acquisition/model building), the target below the complex overburden needs to be sufficiently well illuminated (acquisition), and, finally, the target needs to be properly imaged through the complex overburden (imaging algorithm). All of these elements are discussed in the papers collected in this special section, which consists of contributions that demonstrate recent technology developments as well as insightful case studies that show how the different elements come together to make a successful imaging project.

Agrarian Change in Scotland and Norway: Agricultural Production, Structures, Politics and Policies since 1800

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bryden ◽  
Agnar Hegrenes
Keyword(s):  
Agrarian Change ◽  
Farm Size ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Agrarian Policy ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
State Interventions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Agrarian Revolution

This Chapter addresses differences in agrarian structures, politics and policies between Norway and Scotland. It identifies four key processes: (1) agrarian improvers acceleration of the first agrarian revolution in Scotland through forced enclosures and the dispossession of the peasantry (2) the impact of the free trade period and war time food shortages in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (3) the elaboration of agrarian policy and state interventions in the interwar period, and (4) the consequences of the second agrarian revolution following the Second World War, including the Mansholt plan and subsequent EU policies. These processes help explain the emergence of a dual agrarian structure in Scotland as opposed to the smaller farm size and greater pluriactivity in Norway. Neither history corresponds either to Marxian theories of agrarian change or to those of ‘Modernisation’, but reflects a series of critical junctures and context-specific politics and contests between interests.

scholarly journals Agrarian Transitions, Rural Resistance and Peasant Politics in Southeast Asia

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-139
Author(s):  
Fabian Drahmoune
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Rural Population ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Agrarian Change ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
Rural Change ◽  
Agrarian Studies ◽  
Peasant Politics ◽  
Agrarian Transition ◽  
Agrarian Transformation

In light of the recent revival of agrarian studies in the scholarship of Southeast Asia, this paper reviews three recent publications that are concerned with specific aspects of what has been framed as “agrarian transition”, “agrarian change” or “agrarian transformation”. It seeks to identify new perspectives and fresh approaches to the analytical challenges that arise from the multi-faceted and intertwined nature of agrarian change in the region. Further, it considers the implications of these processes – specifically in social, political and economic terms – for the rural population and examines their ways of embracing and resisting these changes. By emphasising the explanatory potential that linking approaches, theories and methodologies of different research traditions and disciplines in an integrative fashion has, it will be argued that – in order to enhance our understanding of people's responses to rural change – it is essential to recognise their agency and perceptions as interconnected across multiple scales within broader structural conditions.

Introduction to this special section: AVO inversion

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (10) ◽  
pp. 752-753
Author(s):  
Edward Townend ◽  
Michael Kemper
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Seismic Inversion ◽  
The Body ◽  
Amplitude Variation With Offset ◽  
Field Development ◽  
Avo Inversion ◽  
The Subject

It has been more than three years since The Leading Edge last published a special section on amplitude variation with offset (AVO) inversion, and interest in the subject remains strong. This past spring, SEG hosted a joint symposium in Houston, Texas, on the “Resurgence of seismic inversion,” and the body of talks and case studies demonstrated the method's continued relevance to making impactful drilling decisions. Despite this, and despite AVO inversion's position as a mature and well-established technique, there are an abundance of examples in which inaccurate AVO predictions have led to drastic failures at the drill bit. This highlights the challenges that still exist in the successful execution of such investigations and makes the subject occasionally controversial and certainly fraught with data-quality and best-practice considerations. In this vein, the special section presented here offers examples of the broad sweep of considerations and methods relevant to enabling successful AVO inversion and the interpretation of its products, as well as case studies that demonstrate how application of the technique can be impactful all the way through to appraisal and field development programs.

scholarly journals Understanding Accumulation: The Relevance of Marx’s Theory of Primitive Accumulation in Media and Communication Studies

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Ekman
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
News Media ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
Media Systems ◽  
Media And Communication

The aim of this article is to discuss and use Marx’s theory on primitive accumulation, outlined in the first volume of Capital, in relation to media and communication research. In order to develop Marx’s argument the discussion is revitalized through Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession. The article focuses on two different fields within media and communication research where the concept of accumulation by dispossession is applicable. First, the role of news media content, news flows and news media systems are discussed in relation to social mobilization against capitalism, privatizations, and the financial sector. Second, Marx’s theory is used to examine how communication in Web 2.0 and the development of ICTs could advance the processes of capital accumulation by appropriating the work performed by users of Web 2.0 and by increasing the corporate surveillance of Internet users. In conclusion, by analyzing how primitive accumulation is intertwined with contemporary expanded reproduction of capital, the article shows that Marx’s theory can contribute to critical media and communication research in several ways.

scholarly journals Marxism and the logics of dis/integration

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110482
Author(s):  
Noel Castree
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
The Social ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Growth Economic

Marxism is a large and diverse body of thought that has weathered many storms over the last 150 years. While its explanatory and political relevance to today's world is enormous, Marxism lacks mass appeal and largely resides in universities (notably, the social sciences and humanities). While this is, in one sense, a sign of defeat, in another sense it's been productive insofar as it's offered exponents space and time to make sense of capitalism's ever-changing configurations. This article homes-in on classical Marxism and its enduring importance as a tool of analysis and political thinking. It focuses on the author's attempts to understand how the biophysical world is entrained in the dynamics of capital accumulation, especially during the period of neoliberal political economy that began around 35 years ago. Marxist geographers continue to offer important insights into capitalism in a more-than-capitalist world that is, nonetheless, utterly dominated by the contradictory logics of growth, economic competition, endless technological innovation, uneven development, accumulation by dispossession and crisis. For me, classical Marxism's attention to capitalism as an expansive ‘totality’ is critical, obliging us to attend to how different places, people and political projects are brought into a single, if exceedingly complex, universe. The article reflects on how the embrace of classical Marxism necessarily folds the professional into the personal, though in ways that inevitably highlight some of the contradictions that Marx and Engels identified. It's to be hoped that a new and talented generation of Marxist geographers will continue the work initiated 50 years ago by David Harvey and others. The article suggests that a key research frontier for Marxist geography is normative: what sorts of political visions and proposals will gain traction in a variegated yet tightly connected world where capitalism is so manifestly dangerous for people and planet?

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