Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change

Development processes are never neutral. They impact various groups and classes of people differently. A high food price may benefit some rich peasants who produce and sell food surplus, but it may disadvantage landless rural laborers. A project on irrigation may benefit those who own the land, but not the landless tenants. Nowadays, official documents by governments and development agencies tend to lump different groups of people into vague categories like rural poor. This might be useful in some cases, but in large part this thinking can harm the poorest of the poor.

Using Marx’s theory of capitalism, Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change argues that class dynamics should be the starting point of any analysis of agrarian change. It provides an accessible introduction to agrarian political economy while showing clearly how the argument for bringing class back in provides an alternative to inherited conceptions of the agrarian question. It illustrates what is at stake in different ways of thinking about class dynamics and the effects of agrarian change in today’s globalized world.  Review

Peasants and The Art of Farming

Many impressive studies on the changing nature of the global food system have been published, and nearly all address changes at the macro level. The far less visible changes occurring at the micro level have received relatively little attention, especially in the realm of critical rural studies. This book is a reflection of the far reaching and complex transformations of food systems that have occurred as a result of liberalization and globalization.

This book focuses on the structure and dynamics of peasant farms and the historically highly variable relations that govern the processes of labour and production within the peasant farms. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg argues that peasant agriculture can play an important, if not central, role in augmenting food production and creating sustainability. However, peasants today, as in the past, are materially neglected. By building on the pioneering work of Chayanov, this book seeks to address this neglect and to show how important peasants are in the ongoing struggles for food, food sustainability and food sovereignty. Review

Kota Lama Kota Baru

Sejarah dekolonisasi di Indonesia lebih dari sekadar sejarah politik. Dekolonisasi juga merupakan kisah-kisah tentang perubahan sosial, ekonomi, dan juga kultural. Banyak dari perubahan-perubahan tersebut terjadi di perkotaan. Beberapa peristiwa (atau proses) historis disebut sebagai sejarah di kota, sementara peristiwa-peristiwa atau proses-proses lainnya dianggap sebagai sejarah kota. Setidaknya terdapat lima alasan memperhatikan kota-kota dalam proses dekolonisasi. Pertama, kota merupakan panggung terjadinya banyak peristiwa penting; kedua, perubahan penguasa administrasi perkotaan pasti telah meninggalkan konsekuensi-konsekuensi pada kota secara menyeluruh; ketiga, komposisi etnis pada populasi perkotaan berubah sebagai buah dari dekolonisasi; keempat, pertempuran di perkotaan dan di perbatasan dengan desa mengakibatkan arus massal pengungsi yang datang dan pergi; kelima, oleh karena terjadi penaikan yang tiba-tiba dari orang-orang Indonesia pada posisi staf-staf menengah sampai pada posisi-posisi tinggi serta pergantian kepala-kepala departemen dari orang-orang Belanda ke orang-orang Jepang tanpa bekal pengetahuan yang memadai terhadap Indonesia, kegiatan administrasi mengalami kekacauan akibat keterbatasan pengalaman administrasinya. Review

The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow

In this empirical study, Saskia Sassen offers a fresh understanding of the processes of international migration. Focusing on immigration into the US from 1960 to 1985 and the part played by American economic activities abroad, as well as foreign investment in the US, she examines the various ways in which the internationalization of production contributes to the formation and direction of labor migration. Review

Revisiting Rural Places : Pathways to Povert and Prosperity in Southeast Asia

This book examine how the brisk pace of change in the rural is affecting the places, spaces and people that they originally studied, sometimes as long as four decades ago. Each of 14 core chapters in organizedaround a change that the author did non anticipate, based on broader trends. A new longhouse in Sarawak, the urban forests of Java, the assertion of an ethnic minority indentity in Northern Thailand, the reshaping of class relations and identities in Philipines, and the uncontested sell-off of farmland to cacao entrepreners in Sulawesi challenge conventional understandings of how the countryside is being reshaped, and to what effect. Review