A critical analysis of theories of agricultural development and agrarian reform, with reference to agrarian reform policies in Chile (1962-1973).

This thesis is a work of theory; it is also historical. It attempts to provide a critique of the categories through which the phenomena of agricultural development and land reform are habitually grasped. It is divided into three parts. In the first part three main theoretical orientations to the study of capitalist agrarian development are discussed, both abstractly and with reference to their accounts of Latin American rural society in the 1960's. It is argued that all three are unable to explain adequately the process of social and agrarian change. This inability is traced to the fact that all three reduce social totalities to two or more distinct sub-entities or sub-totalities. The author calls this general position the social problematic of dualism. Its inability. to account for social change is, he argues, traceable to the fact that the existence of the sub-entities into which social totalities are divided, is posited as theoretically prior to the relations which connect them. These points are pursued in the second and third parts of the thesis. In the second part an alternative to dualism' with pärticular reference to its variants of the separation of a realm of' industry from a realm of*agriculture, and of the separation of a realm of the economic from a realm of the social, is provided through a detailed theorisation of capitalist social relations. It is argued that the existence of distinct realms of agriculture, industry, economy and society is a real effect of the essential relations of capitalist society, and that these divisions must be transcended through an elucidation of the character of such relations. This is done by distinguishingi; three forms of capitalist development which are produced by these essential relations. Further examples of a dualist analysis in contemporary theorisations of petty commodity production, the world economy and the articulation of modes of production are discussed. In the third part the author returns to an examination of the Latin American context through a discussion of the case of Chile. The theoretical insights developed in the earlier parts are systematically applied to various aspects of Chilean history from the conquest of Latin America to the 1960's, and to the processes of land reform which covered the decade 1962-1973. It is suggested that the agrarian social transformations which this country experienced are only explicable in terms of a position which systematically transcends all dualist assumptions.University of Bradfor

Speak out on poverty: Hearing, inaudibility, and citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa

In 1998, Speak Out on Poverty held hearings across South Africa shortly after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) completed eighteen months of highly publicized, nationwide hearings at which victims testified. Speak Out challenged the TRC’s focus on overt political violations, seen to occlude forms of structural violence central to apartheid's policy and practice, as well as longer legacies of colonialism. Reading Speak Out alongside the TRC puts pressure on supposed differences between official truth commissions or tribunals and those run by civil society. Discussing Speak Out in relation to the TRC signaled more than a set of comparisons. In a time of transition, Speak Out spoke from within and against the noise of the TRC. It aimed to make poverty and inequality the nation's priority rather than reconciliation, or at least to challenge notions of reconciliation that did not have inequity and poverty at its center

The agrarian question in Southern Africa and "Accumulation from below" : economics and politics in the struggle for democracy

Democratisation is on the agenda in Africa, but as the author stresses, this is not just a political question. Alternative forms of accumulation from below must be addressed, and this he does against the backdrop of the historical experiences of Southern Africa

The Contradictory Position of \'Tradition\' in African Nationalist Discourses: Some Analytical and Political Reflections

No Abstract Available Africa Development/Afrique et développement Vol.XXVIII, Nos 1&2, 2003: 1-1

Towards Understanding New Forms of State Rule in [Southern] Africa in the Era of Globalization

In the recent process of transition in Africa since the 1980s, the form of state rule has been changing in many important ways as have the relations between the state and (civil) society. One of the changes in this process concerns the demise of development as a national state project through which state rule was reproduced and legitimized (culturally and politically) up to the 1980s. While the collapse of this form of rule of the developmental state is now apparent, a clear alternative has yet to become evident in Africa. Often formal multi-partyism and elections have been introduced, while at the same time a single-party predominant system has been prevalent to the extent that the earlier ruling parties often continue to control state institutions. In this context, relations between state and civil society may not always exhibit the same kindofobviously repressive characteristics as before, andvarious alternative forms of legitimation are being experimented with (e.g., rights discourse, national "visions", reconciliation, neo-liberal multi-partyism, new forms of corporatism, etc.). This paper addresses several theoretical problems surrounding the analysis of new forms of state rule in Southern Africa in particular. These seem congruent with the current phase of globalization. It seeks to elucidate the workings of developing alternative modes of rule, one basedon the plunder of national mineral assets by members of the ruling elite, another legitimized through a state constructed consensus. It debates the various components of the consensual state in South Africa in particular and assesses the extent to which these have been achieved

From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners. Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa : Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa

The events of May 2008 in which 62 people were killed simply for being 'foreign' and thousands were turned overnight into refugees shook the South African nation. This book is the first to attempt a comprehensive and rigorous explanation for those horrific events. It argues that xenophobia should be understood as a political discourse and practice. As such its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions which structure the field of politics. In South Africa, the history of xenophobia is intimately connected to the manner in which citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw the same migrant labour as the foundation of that oppressive system. Only those who could show a family connection with the colonial and apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's conditions of existence, the book argues, are to be found in the politics of post-apartheid nationalism where state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in conditions of an overwhelmingly passive conception of citizenship. The de-politicisation of an urban population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s through a discourse of human rights in particular, contributed to this passivity. Such state liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book contends, is to be sought in the specific character of the state consensus

From 'Foreign Natives' to 'Native Foreigners'. Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa : Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa

Xenophobia is a political discourse. As such, its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions that structure the field of politics. In South Africa, its history is connected to the manner citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw it as the very foundation of that oppressive system. However, only those who could show a family connection with the colonial/apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's current conditions of existence are to be found in the politics of a post-apartheid nationalism were state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in condition of passive citizenship. The de-politicisation of a population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s, through a discourse of 'human rights' in particular, has contributed to this passivity. State liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book shows, is to be sought in the character of the state consensus. Only a rethinking of citizenship as an active political identity can re-institute political agency and hence begin to provide alternative prescriptions to the political consensus of state-induced exclusion

Rethinking the Political Core of an Emancipatory Project in Africa

This paper will begin by reviewing the political assumptions of the nature of citizenship underlying T.H. Marshall’s argument for ‘social rights’; it will provide a critique of human rights discourse and civil society from an emancipatory perspective (situating these within the new forms of imperialism and statism) and will briefly comment on the character of political parties and social movements in understanding political emancipation today.emancipatory project, social rights, civil society, statism, imperialism, South Africa, Africa, citizenship, huma rights, Legal Studies