Research Articles (PLAAS)

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Browsing by Subject "Accumulation"

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    Smallholder irrigation schemes, agrarian reform and ‘accumulation from above and from below’ in South Africa
    (Wiley & Blackwell Publishing, 2013) Cousins, Ben
    A key issue in debates on agrarian reform in South Africa is the potential for small-scale farming, in conjunction with redistributive land reform, to make a significant contribution to employment creation and poverty reduction. Two problems hinder these debates – the paucity of reliable data on small-scale agriculture, and lack of clarity on the meaning of terms such as ‘smallholder’ and ‘small-scale farmer’. This paper applies class-analytic perspectives on social differentiation to critically examine these terms, and explores the prospects for ‘accumulation from above and from below’ through agrarian reform, drawing on wider debates within the Southern African region. It focuses in particular on smallholder irrigation schemes, potentially a key focus of policy, and presents research findings on production and marketing of fresh produce in one such scheme in Tugela Ferry, KwaZulu-Natal. Survey data show that farming households combine agriculture and various forms of off-farm labour, as is often the case throughout the region, and that accumulation in small-scale agriculture is constrained by a number of factors, including the inherited and largely untransformed agrarian class structure of South Africa. In this context, expanded access to land and water is a necessary but not sufficient condition for such accumulation; wider structural change is also required.
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    Social reproduction of ‘classes of labour’ in the rural areas of South Africa: contradictions and contestations
    (Taylor & Francis, 2018) Cousins, Ben; Dubb, Alex; Hornby, Donna; Mtero, Farai
    Marxist agrarian political economy has focused largely on the problematic of accumulation and its politics, but the dynamics of social reproduction in rural contexts remain somewhat undertheorised. These are explored through consideration of empirical evidence from communal areas and land reform farms in South Africa. Key arguments advanced are that social reproduction in such contexts include the reproduction of distinctive forms of marriage, systems of kinship and community membership, as well as of property relations that are not characterised by private ownership. Much social reproduction occurs outside of (direct) market relations, but it is nevertheless deeply conditioned and shaped by the dynamics of the wider capitalist economy, including in relation to wage labour and small-scale agricultural production. As a result, social reproduction in rural areas involves contradictions, tensions and contestations, and these are often at the centre of local forms of politics. The wider significance of these findings is discussed, and it is suggested that similar dynamics may be at work across the Global South.