Land and Contestations over Autochthony and Local Citizenship in Agrarian Ghana

This article examines the reimagination of communities in an industrial cassava frontier of Ghana in the wake of a contested land grab supported by state and community institutions. Qualitative and survey data were used to construct the existing social relations in the communities through the lens of earlier processes of agrarian change that have transformed the social base of the communities. It is argued that the expansion of capitalist production systems into agrarian areas results in local citizenship contestations centered on land, and redefinition and reclassification of people and their access to land. The multiple claims and contestations that arose from the land grab and the political reactions from below are highlighted. It is further argued that differentiated dispossession and class differences determine the strategies used by affected people. While some farmers demonstrated agency by holding on to a “little pie” to enjoy greater community social cohesion, others, drawing from their local citizenship status, although contested, fought the land grab.

Review of Land, Investment & Politics: Reconfiguring East Africa’s Pastoral Drylands. Edited by Jeremy Lind, Doris Okenwa & Ian Scoones. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, an imprint of Boydell and Brewer, 2020.

Book detailsEdited by Jeremy Lind, Doris Okenwa & Ian ScoonesLand, Investment & Politics: Reconfiguring East Africa’s Pastoral Drylands.Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, an imprint of Boydell and Brewer, 2020.224 pages, ISBN 978-1-84701-252-4 (James Currey hardback) and ISBN 978-1-84701-249-4 (James Currey paper)Jeremy Lind, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Co-editor of “Pastoralism and Development in Africa” (2013)Doris Okenwa, Ph.D student in Anthropology, London School of Economics. Ph.D research on oil discoveries in Turkana County, Kenya.Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Co-Director of ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre, and leader of the European Research council project PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience). Author of “Africa’s Land Rush: Rural Livelihoods and Agrarian Change”.

Land to the Tiller: The Sustainability of Family Farms

This paper on family farms is in the form of an historical review complemented by current and future perspectives from North America, China, Brazil and Europe. The literature review demonstrates the multiple discourses, concepts and methodologies which underpin contemporary understandings of the family farm. The authors argue that family-based farming units are ubiquitous in most agricultural systems and take on many different forms and functions, conditioned by the structure of agriculture in different locations and political systems. Our review accepts this diversity and seeks to identify some key elements that inform our understanding of the sustainability of family farming, now and in the future. The term ‘family’ is the differentiating variable and behooves a sociological approach. However, economists can view the family farm as an economic unit, a business and even a firm. Geographers see family farms consigned to the margins of good land areas, and political scientists have seen family farms as a class. What emerges is a semantic enigma. As an imaginary term, ‘family farming’ is useful as a positive, universally valued ideal; as a definable entity on the ground, however, it is difficult to classify and measure for comparative policy and research purposes. This ambiguity is utilized by governments to manage the increasing capitalization of farm units while projecting the image of wholesome production of food. The case studies demonstrate the diversity of ways in which family farming ideologies are being mobilized in contemporary agrarian change processes. The notion of ‘land to the tiller’ is resonant with historic injustices in Scotland and Brazil, where family-based agriculture is understood as the ‘natural’ order of agricultural production and actively supported as an historic ideal. In contrast, in the Chinese context, ‘land to the tiller’ is a political means of increasing capital penetration and economic sustainability. Evidence from China, Brazil and Scotland demonstrates the active role of governments, coupled with symbolic ideologies of farming, which suggest that the longevity (i.e., sustainability) of family farming will continue.