Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)
Permanent URI for this community
The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management. It is committed to social change that empowers the poor, builds democracy and enhances sustainable livelihoods.
Browse
Browsing by Subject "Accumulation by dispossession"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Blue economy investments and injustices around marine protected areas: the case of Mtwara coast, Tanzania(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Mtui, Rose Sallema; Isaacs, MoeniebaThis thesis explores Blue Economy investments and injustices around marine protected areas. It examines whether fishing communities are gaining or losing from investments in the marine park areas; and unpacks the dilemmas that authorities face when they promote investments while protecting communities’ livelihoods at the same time. The study futher assesses the role of the state in supporting communities’ livelihoods. The thesis draws on the literature on the political ecology of natural resource governance and blue and green economies. It expands the scholarly debates around the logic behind blue economy, and its impacts on fishing communities’ livelihoods and the environment at large. It locates its discussion on Harvey’s theorisation of the accumulation by dispossession (AbD) and on Issa Shivji’s articulations of AbD and displacement. Several conceptual insights including governmentality, displacement, livelihood and vulnerability, local livelihoods (referring to Dorward’ aspirations), criminalisation of livelihood and ecological crisis are used to explain the logic behind blue economy in Mtwara, Tanzania and how investment activities impact communities’ livelihoods and the environment.Item Mining, capital and dispossession in Limpopo, South Africa(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2019) Zamchiya, PhillanThis Working Paper explains the processes by which land, water and other natural resources were seized, and their previous users dispossessed, for the purposes of capital accumulation by Ivanplats platinum mining company in Limpopo, South Africa. The mining firm largely acquired land through non-voluntary mechanisms by disregarding South Africa’s Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act (IPILRA) set to protect the lawful occupiers and users of land. Through detailed empirical examination, I demonstrate how locals in Limpopo experienced dispossession through enclosure of farmland, water sources, grazing fields and cultural shrines, paving the way for accumulation by the mining firm. Beyond productive sources, the mining firm also acquired capital through imposing financial interests on unfair community loans. Corruption, coercion and bribes were useful dispossession tools in a powerful triple alliance of investors, state officials and traditional leaders. This exacerbated the crises of livelihoods for many, especially women, who did not integrate in the new mining wage-labour economy and its entrepreneurial opportunities. I partly agree with scholars who have used some Accumulation by Dispossession (ABD) features to explain this phenomenon. However, it is important to note that dispossession even through economic means and with voluntary consent can also lead to similar dire consequences for the rural poor. In addition, the farmers were not out of capitalist relations of production as implied in the conceptualisation of ABD with its genealogy in primitive accumulation and there was no full rural proletarianisation. Given the nominal welfarist benefits for the locals in this extractivist model of investment, covert, intermediary and overt resistance to land dispossession was rife, though it met with brutal state force making the future unstable and uncertain