scholarly journals Land Deals, Wage Labour, and Everyday Politics

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adwoa Yeboah Gyapong
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Politics ◽  
Settler Society ◽  
Context Specific

This article explores the question of political struggles for inclusion on an oil palm land deal in Ghana. It examines the employment dynamics and the everyday politics of rural wage workers on a transnational oil palm plantation which is located in a predominantly migrant and settler society where large-scale agricultural production has only been introduced within the past decade. It shows that, by the nature of labour organization, as well as other structural issues, workers do not benefit equally from their work on plantations. The main form of farmworkers’ political struggles in the studied case has been the ‘everyday forms of resistance’ against exploitation and for better terms of incorporation. Particularly, they express agency through acts such as absenteeism and non-compliance, as well as engaging in other productive activities which enable them to maintain their basic food sovereignty/security. Nonetheless, their multiple and individualized everyday politics are not necessarily changing the structure of social relations associated with capitalist agriculture. Overall, this paper contributes to the land grab literature by providing context specific dynamics of the impacts of, and politics around land deals, and how they are shaped by a multiplicity of factors-beyond class.

scholarly journals Land Deals, Labour and Everyday Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adwoa Yeboah Gyapong
Keyword(s):  
Oil Palm ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
The North ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Politics ◽  
Settler Society ◽  
Context Specific

This study presents empirical evidence on the nature of the political struggles for inclusion on an oil palm land deal in Ghana. It examines the employment dynamics and the everyday politics of workers on an oil palm plantation in a predominantly migrant and settler society of the north-eastern part of Ghana, where large-scale production has only been introduced within the past decade. It shows that by the nature of labour organization, as well as other structural issues, workers do not benefit equally from the land deals and therefore express everyday forms of resistance against exploitation, and for better terms of incorporation. Particularly, they express agency through absenteeism and non-compliance, which especially, enables them to maintain their basic food sovereignty/security. Nonetheless, these everyday politics is not necessarily liberating in confronting the everyday peasant problems and unfavourable agrarian transitions associated with capitalist agriculture. Overall, this paper contributes to the land grab literature by providing context-specific dynamics of impacts and politics and how are they are shaped by a multiplicity of factors- beyond class.

“Community Interests” and the Role of International Law in the Creation of a Global Market for Agricultural Land

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen von Bernstorff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
The One

The chapter explores the notion of “community interests” with regard to the global “land-grab” phenomenon. Over the last decade, a dramatic increase of foreign investment in agricultural land could be observed. Bilateral investment treaties protect around 75 per cent of these large-scale land acquisitions, many of which came with associated social problems, such as displaced local populations and negative consequences for food security in Third World countries receiving these large-scale foreign investments. Hence, two potentially conflicting areas of international law are relevant in this context: Economic, social, and cultural rights and the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and “food sovereignty” challenging large-scale investments on the one hand, and specific norms of international economic law stabilizing them on the other. The contribution discusses the usefulness of the concept of “community interests” in cases where the two colliding sets of norms are both considered to protect such interests.

scholarly journals The everyday politics of India’s “land wars” in rural eastern India

Focaal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (75) ◽  
pp. 105-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Bo Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Political ◽  
Life Domains ◽  
Eastern India ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Development Trajectory ◽  
Everyday Politics ◽  
Private Corporations

The large-scale transfer of land from rural communities to private corporations has become a defining feature of India’s development trajectory. These land transfers have given rise to a multitude of new “land wars” as dispossessed groups have struggled to retain their land. Yet while much has been written about the political economy of development that underpins this new form of dispossession, the ways in which those threatened with dispossession have sought to mobilize have to a lesser extent been subject to close ethnographic scrutiny. This article argues that an “everyday politics” perspective can enhance our understanding of India’s new land wars, using a case from Singur as the starting point. The agenda is twofold. I show how everyday life domains and sociopolitical relations pertaining to caste, class, gender, and party political loyalty were crucial to the making of the Singur movement and its politics. Second, by analyzing the movement in processual terms, I show how struggles over land can be home to a multitude of political meanings and aspirations as participants seek to use new political forums to resculpt everyday sociopolitical relations.

scholarly journals Clash of the Titans: Temporal Organizing and Collaborative Dynamics in the Panama Canal Megaproject

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (12) ◽  
pp. 1745-1769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfons van Marrewijk ◽  
Sierk Ybema ◽  
Karen Smits ◽  
Stewart Clegg ◽  
Tyrone Pitsis
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Project Leader ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Panama Canal Expansion ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Face

Recent studies of temporary organizing and project-based work explain how organizational actors establish and maintain clear role structures and harmonious relations in the face of precariousness by engaging in stabilizing work practices. This focus upon ‘order’ undervalues conflict-ridden negotiations and power struggles in temporary organizing. This paper demonstrates that in temporary organizing conflict and order may exist in tandem. Drawing close to the collaborative dynamics in a large-scale global project, we analyse the political struggles over role patterns and hierarchic positioning of client and agent in the temporary organization of the Panama Canal Expansion Program (PCEP). In such projects, the agent typically takes the position of project leader. In this case however, the client was formally in charge, while the agent was assigned the role of coach and mentor. The diffuse hierarchy triggered project partners to engage in both harmony-seeking social and discursive practices and to enter into conflict-ridden negotiations over authority relations in the everyday execution of the PCEP project. Our study contributes to existing literatures on temporal organizing by presenting a case of simultaneous practices of harmonization and contestation over mutual roles and hierarchic positions. We also show that studying collaboration between project partners involves, not merely analysing project governance structures, but also offering a context-sensitive account of everyday social and discursive practices. Finally, we reflect on a view of ‘permanence’ and ‘temporariness’ as themselves contested categories and symbolic sites for struggle.

Civil sphere and democracy in Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Ch. Alexander ◽  
Carlo Tognato
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Civil Sphere ◽  
The Everyday

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the civil spheres of Latin America remain in force, even when under threat, and to expand the method of theorizing democracy, understanding it not only as a state form, but also as a way of life. Moreover, the task of the authors goes beyond the purely application of the theory of the civil sphere in order to emphasize the relevance not only in practice, but also in the theory of democratic culture and institutions of Latin America. This task requires decolonizing the arrogant attitude of North theorists towards democratic processes outside the United States and Europe. The peculiarities of civil spheres in Latin America are emphasized. It is argued that over the course of the nineteenth century the non-civil institutions and value spheres that surrounded civil spheres deeply compromised them. The problems of development that pockmarked Latin America — lagging economies, racial and ethnic and class stratification, religious strife — were invariably filtered through the cultural aspirations and institutional patterns of civil spheres. The appeal of the theory of the civil sphere to the experience of Latin America reveals the ambitious nature of civil society and democracy on new and stronger foundations. Civil spheres had extended significantly as citizens confronted uncomfortable facts, collectively searched for solutions, and envisioned new courses of collective action. However when populism and authoritarianism advance, civil understandings of legitimacy come under pressure from alternative, anti-democratic conceptions of motives, social relations, and political institutions. In these times, a fine-grained understanding of the competitive dynamics between civil, non-civil, and anti-civil becomes particularly critical. Such a vision is constructively applied not only to the realities of Latin America, but also in a wider global context. The authors argue that in order to understand the realities and the limits of populism and polarization, civil sphere scholars need to dive straight into the everyday life of civil communities, setting the civil sphere theory (CST) in a more ethnographic, “anthropological” mode.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION OF CA DONG PEOPLE IN RESETTLEMENT AREA OF TRANH RIVER HYDROPOWER NUMBER 2: CURRENT SITUATION AND IMPACT FACTORS

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bùi Thị Bích Lan
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
Technical Application ◽  
Production Models ◽  
Role Of The State

In Vietnam, the construction of hydropower projects has contributed significantly in the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country. The place where hydropower projects are built is mostly inhabited by ethnic minorities - communities that rely primarily on land, a very important source of livelihood security. In the context of the lack of common productive land in resettlement areas, the orientation for agricultural production is to promote indigenous knowledge combined with increasing scientific and technical application; shifting from small-scale production practices to large-scale commodity production. However, the research results of this article show that many obstacles in the transition process are being posed such as limitations on natural resources, traditional production thinking or the suitability and effectiveness of scientific - technical application models. When agricultural production does not ensure food security, a number of implications for people’s lives are increasingly evident, such as poverty, preserving cultural identity, social relations and resource protection. Since then, it has set the role of the State in researching and building appropriate agricultural production models to exploit local strengths and ensure sustainability.

scholarly journals Colonial management as a social field: The Palestinian remaking of Israel’s system of spatial control

2021 ◽  
pp. 001139212110246
Author(s):  
Walid Habbas ◽  
Yael Berda
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Spatial Mobility ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Spatial Control ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Economic Elite ◽  
The Everyday

This article delves into the everyday dynamics of colonial rule to outline a novel way of understanding colonized–colonizer interactions. It conceives colonial management as a social field in which both the colonized and colonizers negotiate and exchange resources, despite their decidedly unequal positions within a racial hierarchy. Drawing their example from the West Bank, the authors argue that a Palestinian economic elite has proactively participated in the co-production of the colonial management of spatial mobility, a central component of Israeli colonial rule. The study employs interviews and document analysis to investigate how the nexus between Palestine’s commercial-logistical needs and Israel’s security complex induced large-scale Palestinian producers to exert agency and reorder commercial mobility. The authors describe and explain the evolution of a ‘Door-to-Door’ logistical arrangement, in which large-scale Palestinian traders participate in extending Israeli’s system of spatial control in exchange for facilitating logistical mobility. This horizontal social encounter that entails pay-offs is conditioned, but not fully determined, by vertical relations of domination and subordination.

scholarly journals Scaling Up Delivery of Biofortified Staple Food Crops Globally: Paths to Nourishing Millions

2021 ◽  
pp. 037957212098250
Author(s):  
Jennifer K. Foley ◽  
Kristina D. Michaux ◽  
Bho Mudyahoto ◽  
Laira Kyazike ◽  
Binu Cherian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pearl Millet ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Micronutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Public And Private Sector

Background: Micronutrient deficiencies affect over one quarter of the world’s population. Biofortification is an evidence-based nutrition strategy that addresses some of the most common and preventable global micronutrient gaps and can help improve the health of millions of people. Since 2013, HarvestPlus and a consortium of collaborators have made impressive progress in the enrichment of staple crops with essential micronutrients through conventional plant breeding. Objective: To review and highlight lessons learned from multiple large-scale delivery strategies used by HarvestPlus to scale up biofortification across different country and crop contexts. Results: India has strong public and private sector pearl millet breeding programs and a robust commercial seed sector. To scale-up pearl millet, HarvestPlus established partnerships with public and private seed companies, which facilitated the rapid commercialization of products and engagement of farmers in delivery activities. In Nigeria, HarvestPlus stimulated the initial acceptance and popularization of vitamin A cassava using a host of creative approaches, including “crowding in” delivery partners, innovative promotional programs, and development of intermediate raw material for industry and novel food products. In Uganda, orange sweet potato (OSP) is a traditional subsistence crop. Due to this, and the lack of formal seed systems and markets, HarvestPlus established a network of partnerships with community-based nongovernmental organizations and vine multipliers to popularize and scale-up delivery of OSP. Conclusions: Impact of biofortification ultimately depends on the development of sustainable markets for biofortified seeds and products. Results illustrate the need for context-specific, innovative solutions to promote widespread adoption.

Consumers’ self-congruence with a “Liked” brand

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Wallace ◽  
Isabel Buil ◽  
Leslie de Chernatony
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Brand Loyalty ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Tie Strength ◽  
Brand Love ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Self Image

Purpose Brand “Likes” on Facebook facilitate self-expression, forming part of consumers’ virtual selves. Yet, consumers’ brand “Likes” may bear little resemblance to their material realities. This paper aims to test similarities of brand image with self-image for Facebook “Likes” to determine whether self-congruence with a “Liked” brand leads to positive offline brand outcomes. It also investigates whether consumers’ perceptions about their Facebook social relations influence self-congruent brand “Likes”. Design/methodology/approach A large-scale survey was conducted of regular Facebook users who “Liked” brands. Data from 438 respondents was analysed and hypotheses tested using structural equation modeling. Findings Empirical results show that the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand increases with social tie strength. Perceived social tie strength is informed by perceived attitude homophily. When the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand is higher, brand love and word of mouth (WOM) are enhanced. Consumers also have greater brand loyalty and offer more WOM when brands are loved. Research limitations/implications Findings demonstrate the influence of consumers’ cognitive network on “Likes” and brand outcomes. Further replication would enhance generalisability. Future research should use a wider sample and investigate other variables. Practical implications Findings support managers seeking to grow and analyse Facebook “Likes” by providing insights into brand loyalty, brand love and WOM for “Liked” brands. Originality/value The paper addresses the dearth of research exploring how consumers’ perceptions of their Facebook network influence their online brand behaviour and how perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand relates to brand outcomes.

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