NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144699 , vital:38371 , DOI: 10.1177/0021909614535552
- Description: This book focuses on the process of ‘NGOization’, namely, ‘the institutionalization, professionalization, depoliticization and demobilization of movements’ for social change (p. 1) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This process arises in and through the interface and relations between movements and NGOs and it highlights the overall system-maintenance role of NGOs. Of course, NGOs may not deliberately seek to depoliticize and demobilize movements. Rather, NGOization may involve the unintended consequences of the logic and dispositions of NGOs as a particular organization form.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144699 , vital:38371 , DOI: 10.1177/0021909614535552
- Description: This book focuses on the process of ‘NGOization’, namely, ‘the institutionalization, professionalization, depoliticization and demobilization of movements’ for social change (p. 1) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This process arises in and through the interface and relations between movements and NGOs and it highlights the overall system-maintenance role of NGOs. Of course, NGOs may not deliberately seek to depoliticize and demobilize movements. Rather, NGOization may involve the unintended consequences of the logic and dispositions of NGOs as a particular organization form.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Imagining Civil Society in Zimbabwe and ‘Most of the World’:
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144802 , vital:38380 , ISBN 9781461482628 , DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-8262-8_11
- Description: This chapter re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) calls ‘most of the world’ (beyond the capitalist metropoles) and, in doing so, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an entry point into the literature on civil society. This chapter consists of four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically without any sustained theoretical reflections. Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within the broader international literature on civil society. These three sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil society: between civil society as a set of empirically identifiable organisational formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I reimagine civil society in relation to ‘most of the world’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144802 , vital:38380 , ISBN 9781461482628 , DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-8262-8_11
- Description: This chapter re-visits the notion of civil society in what Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004) calls ‘most of the world’ (beyond the capitalist metropoles) and, in doing so, uses Zimbabwe (and Africa more broadly) as an entry point into the literature on civil society. This chapter consists of four main sections. First, I discuss literature on civil society in Africa which, in the main, dichotomises civil society and the state empirically without any sustained theoretical reflections. Second, I provide an overview of Zimbabwean society and politics over the past decade and the ensuing debate, which in many ways produces a Manichean dualism whereby civil society is equated with progression and the state with regression. Third, I locate this conceptualisation of civil society within the broader international literature on civil society. These three sections, as a whole, highlight slippages in defining and understanding civil society: between civil society as a set of empirically identifiable organisational formations and civil society as a social space marked by civil liberties and voluntary arrangements in bourgeois society. Finally, I reimagine civil society in relation to ‘most of the world’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Liberation movements in power: party and state in southern Africa
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144688 , vital:38370 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2014.960705
- Description: In Liberation movements in power, Roger Southall provides a rich and refined account of political transformation in three ex-settler colonies in southern Africa, namely, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In particular, he focuses on their former hegemonic national liberation movements, namely, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) – now ZANU-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) – in Zimbabwe, their metamorphism into political parties and party machines, and their ‘capture’ of state power as the dominant political party subsequent to the end of white settler colonialism and the emergence of non-racial democracy. The general conclusion is that democratic ideals and procedures have become subordinated to the dictates of authoritarian restructuring.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144688 , vital:38370 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2014.960705
- Description: In Liberation movements in power, Roger Southall provides a rich and refined account of political transformation in three ex-settler colonies in southern Africa, namely, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In particular, he focuses on their former hegemonic national liberation movements, namely, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) – now ZANU-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) – in Zimbabwe, their metamorphism into political parties and party machines, and their ‘capture’ of state power as the dominant political party subsequent to the end of white settler colonialism and the emergence of non-racial democracy. The general conclusion is that democratic ideals and procedures have become subordinated to the dictates of authoritarian restructuring.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Zimbabwe takes back its land:
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144677 , vital:38369 , DOI: 10.1080/02589001.2014.984946
- Description: Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land offers a useful introduction to fast-track land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe for a broad popular audience unfamiliar with the existing literature on fast-track land reform. But its value as a contribution to a more specialised and nuanced body of knowledge about fast-track is considerably more problematic.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144677 , vital:38369 , DOI: 10.1080/02589001.2014.984946
- Description: Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land offers a useful introduction to fast-track land reform in contemporary Zimbabwe for a broad popular audience unfamiliar with the existing literature on fast-track land reform. But its value as a contribution to a more specialised and nuanced body of knowledge about fast-track is considerably more problematic.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
NGOs and rural movements in contemporary South Africa:
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144666 , vital:38368 , DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2013.806415
- Description: This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in agrarian transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144666 , vital:38368 , DOI: 10.1080/02533952.2013.806415
- Description: This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in agrarian transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Civil society and state-centred struggles
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71231 , vital:29821 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2012.641723
- Description: This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the boundaries of civil society. This civil society-state discussion frames the second section of the article, which looks specifically at Zimbabwe. It details civil society as contested terrain (from the late 1990s onwards) within the context of a scholarly debate about agrarian transformation and political change. This debate, which reproduces (in theoretical garb) the key political society (or party) fault-lines within Zimbabwean society, has taken place primarily within the restricted confines of state-centred discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71231 , vital:29821 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2012.641723
- Description: This article is about civil society and state-centred struggles in contemporary Zimbabwe. I first identify and outline three current understandings of civil society. Two understandings (one Liberal, one Radical) are state-centric and exist firmly within the logic of state discourses and state politics. A third understanding, also Radical, is society-centric and speaks about politics existing at a distance from the state and possibly beyond the boundaries of civil society. This civil society-state discussion frames the second section of the article, which looks specifically at Zimbabwe. It details civil society as contested terrain (from the late 1990s onwards) within the context of a scholarly debate about agrarian transformation and political change. This debate, which reproduces (in theoretical garb) the key political society (or party) fault-lines within Zimbabwean society, has taken place primarily within the restricted confines of state-centred discourses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Marx, Weber and NGOs:
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144738 , vital:38375 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2007.10419171
- Description: This article offers a sociological understanding of intermediary NGOs in the modern world. In does so by drawing on certain epistemological insights of Marx and Weber, and this entails methodologies of both deconstruction and reconstruction. In arguing against a sociological behaviourism that pervades the NGO literature, the article conceptualises intermediary NGOs as a ‘social form’ embodying contradictory relations. For analytical purposes, the contradiction between ‘the global’ and ‘the local’ is brought to the fore.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144738 , vital:38375 , DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2007.10419171
- Description: This article offers a sociological understanding of intermediary NGOs in the modern world. In does so by drawing on certain epistemological insights of Marx and Weber, and this entails methodologies of both deconstruction and reconstruction. In arguing against a sociological behaviourism that pervades the NGO literature, the article conceptualises intermediary NGOs as a ‘social form’ embodying contradictory relations. For analytical purposes, the contradiction between ‘the global’ and ‘the local’ is brought to the fore.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Quality of life in Grahamstown, East London and Mdantsane: preliminary result
- Helliker, Kirk D, Bekker, Simon, Lambie, Eileen
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Bekker, Simon , Lambie, Eileen
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144756 , vital:38376 , DOI: 10.1080/02580144.1981.10428933
- Description: A quality of life survey amongst residents of three Eastern Cape towns, viz. Grahamstown, East London, and Mdantsane, shows that the attitudes to home and neighbourhood which urban residents in the Eastern Cape develop, are fashioned in large part by both the residential “group area” in which these urban dwellers live, and by their socio-economic status. White residents, overwhelmingly, are satisfied with their diets, their municipality, their homes. They feel safe in their homes and are satisfied that police protection is available if needed. For black residents fear of poverty and unemployment, of physical violence, and dissatisfaction with an inadequate diet is widespread. Indian and coloured urban residents who are generally perceived as minorities in Grahamstown and East London, occupy an intermediate position. Their residential areas are sited close to predominantly low income black residential areas. Higher income Indian and coloured households show lower rates of dissatisfaction with diet, housing, and municipal services than the black community.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Bekker, Simon , Lambie, Eileen
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144756 , vital:38376 , DOI: 10.1080/02580144.1981.10428933
- Description: A quality of life survey amongst residents of three Eastern Cape towns, viz. Grahamstown, East London, and Mdantsane, shows that the attitudes to home and neighbourhood which urban residents in the Eastern Cape develop, are fashioned in large part by both the residential “group area” in which these urban dwellers live, and by their socio-economic status. White residents, overwhelmingly, are satisfied with their diets, their municipality, their homes. They feel safe in their homes and are satisfied that police protection is available if needed. For black residents fear of poverty and unemployment, of physical violence, and dissatisfaction with an inadequate diet is widespread. Indian and coloured urban residents who are generally perceived as minorities in Grahamstown and East London, occupy an intermediate position. Their residential areas are sited close to predominantly low income black residential areas. Higher income Indian and coloured households show lower rates of dissatisfaction with diet, housing, and municipal services than the black community.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Zimbabwe's Land Reform: myths and realities
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144710 , vital:38372 , DOI: 10.1080/02589001.2011.581502
- Description: Zimbabwe’s land reform is the first book on contemporary Zimbabwe that offers an empirically-rich and detailed account of redistributed farms that arose from ‘fasttrack’ land reform 10 years ago. In order to fully appreciate the significance of this book, it is necessary to outline briefly recent intellectual debates on Zimbabwe. Two main positions exist on Zimbabwean politics and society. The first position argues that the radical restructuring of agrarian relations (including undermining white agricultural capital and breaking up large commercial farms into smaller units) is a progressive tendency that has opened up opportunities for black small-scale farmers. Simultaneously, this position often underplays the existence of state restructuring of an authoritarian kind. The second position argues that land redistribution has dramatically undercut agricultural production thereby severely compromising food security for all Zimbabweans. It brings to the fore violent state action in instigating land occupations and in thwarting political opposition to ‘fast-track’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144710 , vital:38372 , DOI: 10.1080/02589001.2011.581502
- Description: Zimbabwe’s land reform is the first book on contemporary Zimbabwe that offers an empirically-rich and detailed account of redistributed farms that arose from ‘fasttrack’ land reform 10 years ago. In order to fully appreciate the significance of this book, it is necessary to outline briefly recent intellectual debates on Zimbabwe. Two main positions exist on Zimbabwean politics and society. The first position argues that the radical restructuring of agrarian relations (including undermining white agricultural capital and breaking up large commercial farms into smaller units) is a progressive tendency that has opened up opportunities for black small-scale farmers. Simultaneously, this position often underplays the existence of state restructuring of an authoritarian kind. The second position argues that land redistribution has dramatically undercut agricultural production thereby severely compromising food security for all Zimbabweans. It brings to the fore violent state action in instigating land occupations and in thwarting political opposition to ‘fast-track’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Dancing around the same spot? land reform and Ngos in Zimbabwe: the case of SOS Children’s Villages
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61006 , vital:27910 , http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/asr.v13i2.60408
- Description: This paper discusses the rural-based operations of an international NGO in Mashonaland Central province, Zimbabwe. The aim is to highlight the contingent variation of NGO practices within defined limits. It does this through 'thick description’ of the NGO of focus, the SOS Children’s Village, and compares its 'handling' of the transforming countryside with the response of two other NGOs. It concludes by suggesting some conceptual points in understanding organizational dispositions of NGOs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61006 , vital:27910 , http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/asr.v13i2.60408
- Description: This paper discusses the rural-based operations of an international NGO in Mashonaland Central province, Zimbabwe. The aim is to highlight the contingent variation of NGO practices within defined limits. It does this through 'thick description’ of the NGO of focus, the SOS Children’s Village, and compares its 'handling' of the transforming countryside with the response of two other NGOs. It concludes by suggesting some conceptual points in understanding organizational dispositions of NGOs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Fanon’s Curse: re-imagining Marxism in South Africa’s age of retreat
- Helliker, Kirk D, Vale, Peter C J
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Vale, Peter C J
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: conference paper , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61029 , vital:27924 , http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.587.740&rep=rep1&type=pdf
- Description: Given its growing, even dark, reputation for xenophobia, it seems extraordinary that South Africa remains open to ideas from the outside. Fifteen years after apartheid in South Africa ended, the country’s great cities are branded with the same imported images that clutter glittering malls in New York, London or Sydney. The rapidity of this makeover from apartheid’s grey conformity is held to be testimony to the success of neo-liberal globalisation which was enthusiastically embraced with apartheid’s ending.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Vale, Peter C J
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: conference paper , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61029 , vital:27924 , http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.587.740&rep=rep1&type=pdf
- Description: Given its growing, even dark, reputation for xenophobia, it seems extraordinary that South Africa remains open to ideas from the outside. Fifteen years after apartheid in South Africa ended, the country’s great cities are branded with the same imported images that clutter glittering malls in New York, London or Sydney. The rapidity of this makeover from apartheid’s grey conformity is held to be testimony to the success of neo-liberal globalisation which was enthusiastically embraced with apartheid’s ending.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
NGOs and rural movements in contemporary South Africa
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71252 , vital:29823 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2013.806415
- Description: This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in agrarian transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71252 , vital:29823 , https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2013.806415
- Description: This article provides a critical examination of relationships between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and rural movements in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly with regard to the possible subordination of movements to NGOs. In discussing NGOs as a particular organisational form, and in reviewing some arguments pertaining to NGOs and rural movements globally, I explore whether NGOs in South Africa have a progressive role to play in agrarian transformation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa, 1971–1983 by Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries
- Helliker, Kirk D, Atkinson, Doreen
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Atkinson, Doreen
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144789 , vital:38379 , DOI: 10.1080/02533958508628694
- Description: Book review: Kirk Helliker and Doreen Atkinson (1985) From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa, 1971–1983 by Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D , Atkinson, Doreen
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144789 , vital:38379 , DOI: 10.1080/02533958508628694
- Description: Book review: Kirk Helliker and Doreen Atkinson (1985) From Control to Confusion: The Changing Role of Administration Boards in South Africa, 1971–1983 by Simon Bekker and Richard Humphries.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
South African marxist state theory: a critical overview
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144778 , vital:38378 , DOI: 10.1080/02589348808704885
- Description: The article provides a critical analysis of Marxist work on the South African state. It first examines the early Poulantzian‐State Derivationist debate on the relation between state and society, and then discusses the ‘new directions’ which focus on the state itself. The sensitivity of the ‘new directions’ to the traditional Weberian concern about state bureaucracy is important for enriching Marxist theory. But the article concludes by suggesting that a comprehensive dialectical Marxist approach to the South African state still awaits development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144778 , vital:38378 , DOI: 10.1080/02589348808704885
- Description: The article provides a critical analysis of Marxist work on the South African state. It first examines the early Poulantzian‐State Derivationist debate on the relation between state and society, and then discusses the ‘new directions’ which focus on the state itself. The sensitivity of the ‘new directions’ to the traditional Weberian concern about state bureaucracy is important for enriching Marxist theory. But the article concludes by suggesting that a comprehensive dialectical Marxist approach to the South African state still awaits development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Reclaiming the land: the resurgence of rural movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: review essay , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61017 , vital:27913 , http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/asr.v9i2.23268
- Description: In the early 1990s, Rehman Sobhan (1993) argued that after two decades in which agrarian reform was a global non-event, ‘[vjotaries of agrarian reform’ had been reduced to ‘a fringe group of romantic throwbacks left over from the 1950s and 1960s’ (1993: p.3) He offered a broad overview of post-Second World War experiences in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and distinguished between radical and non-egalitarian reforms in terms of their effect on eliminating class differentiation and modes of domination in the countryside. He concluded by arguing that ‘ [t]he political mobilization needed to realize radical reforms in the contemporary developing world remains elusive’’ (1993: p.133, my emphasis). Nearly ten years later, Deborah Bryceson (2000), after discussing the post-Second World War academic literature on the peasantry, suggested that '[pleasant theory is on the retreat’ (2000: p.29); that it was critical to bring peasants ‘back into theoretical and policy debates’ (2000: p.30); and that the ongoing reproduction of the peasantry in Latin America, Asia and Africa through contradictory processes of formation and dissolution seemed to give them an ‘enduringpresence’ (2000: p.6). She concluded also by referring to an elusiveness, speaking about the multifaceted survival strategies of the peasantry under conditions of global neo-liberalism that make the peasantry - conceptually - ‘more elusive than before’ (2000: p.30, my emphasis). These brief comments on the status of the peasantry and agrarian reform provide an important historical and theoretical backdrop to the volume under review.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Helliker, Kirk D
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: review essay , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61017 , vital:27913 , http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/asr.v9i2.23268
- Description: In the early 1990s, Rehman Sobhan (1993) argued that after two decades in which agrarian reform was a global non-event, ‘[vjotaries of agrarian reform’ had been reduced to ‘a fringe group of romantic throwbacks left over from the 1950s and 1960s’ (1993: p.3) He offered a broad overview of post-Second World War experiences in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and distinguished between radical and non-egalitarian reforms in terms of their effect on eliminating class differentiation and modes of domination in the countryside. He concluded by arguing that ‘ [t]he political mobilization needed to realize radical reforms in the contemporary developing world remains elusive’’ (1993: p.133, my emphasis). Nearly ten years later, Deborah Bryceson (2000), after discussing the post-Second World War academic literature on the peasantry, suggested that '[pleasant theory is on the retreat’ (2000: p.29); that it was critical to bring peasants ‘back into theoretical and policy debates’ (2000: p.30); and that the ongoing reproduction of the peasantry in Latin America, Asia and Africa through contradictory processes of formation and dissolution seemed to give them an ‘enduringpresence’ (2000: p.6). She concluded also by referring to an elusiveness, speaking about the multifaceted survival strategies of the peasantry under conditions of global neo-liberalism that make the peasantry - conceptually - ‘more elusive than before’ (2000: p.30, my emphasis). These brief comments on the status of the peasantry and agrarian reform provide an important historical and theoretical backdrop to the volume under review.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
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