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Little nothing
\"The story of a girl, scorned for her physical deformity, whose passion and salvation lie in her otherworldly ability to transform herself and the world around her\"--Amazon.com.
Book
archaeology of the colonized
The first book to integrate fully the archaeological study of the landscape with the concerns of colonial and postcolonial history, theory and scholarship, The Archaeology of the Colonized focuses on the experience of the colonized in their landscape setting, looking at case studies from areas of the world not often considered in the postcolonial debate. It offers original, exciting approaches to the growing area of research in archaeology and colonialism.
From the pyramids of Old Kingdom Egypt to illicit whisky distilling in nineteenth-century Scotland, and from the Roman roads of Turkey to the threshing floors of Cyprus under British colonial rule, the case studies assist Dr. Given as he uses the archaeological evidence to create a vivid picture of how the lives and identities of farmers, artisans and labourers were affected by colonial systems of oppressive taxation, bureaucracy, forced labour and ideological control.
This will be valuable to students, scholars or professionals investigating the relationship between local community and central control in a wide range of historical and archaeological contexts.
\"A commendable and exciting work...the author's interest in imperialism is bold and timely, as is his interest in promoting a bottom-up approach...A great opportunity to advance archaeological thought about imperialism.\" - Charles E. Orser Jr, Illinois State University
Michael Given is a Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, and co-director of the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project in Cyprus. His research interests include archaeological survey, landscape archaeology, imperialism and historical archaeology. He is co-author with A. Bernard Knapp of The Sydney Cyprus Survey Project: social approaches to regional archaeological survey (2003).
1. Introduction 2. Resistance - Agency - Landscape - Narrative 3. The Archaeology of Taxation 4. The Settlement of Empire 5. Living between Lines 6. The Dominated Body 7. The Patron Saint of Tax Evaders 8. Landscapes of Resistance 9. Conclusion: Archaeologists and the Colonized
eBook
The Working Hungry
During the famine of 1891, the Russian government engaged the starving peasantry as workers for construction programmes in order to support them with salaries and to capitalize on their labour at the same time. This “public works” campaign was a humanitarian and economic failure. The article explores this disaster and uses the campaign as a prism through which to address the value and perception of “human resources” in the history of late Tsarist Russia. Unlike Russia’s natural riches, its large peasant population was never seen as a resource. The history of public works explains this gap and reveals why Russia failed to utilize its immense demographic potential. By scrutinizing the conception and implementation of the public works campaign, the paper highlights how the perception of the peasants’ supposed “backwardness” in Russian economic culture led state officials in St. Petersburg and the provinces to rely on negative incentive to mobilize the workforce. It shows how this approach both alienated the labourers from the programme and made decision-makers insusceptible to the problems and significance of peasant agency. The officials’ inability to grasp individual peasant agency prevented the Russian state from taking advantage of this resource on a larger scale.
Journal Article
Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty
Agroecology has been proposed as a key building block for food sovereignty. This article examines the meaning, practices and potentials of ‘transformative agroecology learning’ as a collective strategy for food system transformation. Our study is based on our qualitative and action research with the European Coordination of Via Campesina to develop the European Agroecology Knowledge Exchange Network (EAKEN). This network is linked to the global network of La Via Campesina and builds on the strong experiences and traditions of popular education in Latin American peasant movements. Rather than focusing on agroecology education as a process of individual learning, we analyse how a transformative agroecology education can be strengthened as a critical repertoire of action used by social movements to advance food sovereignty. Our analysis contributes a new theory of transformative agroecology learning based on four key characteristics or qualities: horizontalism; diálogo de saberes (wisdom dialogues); combining practical and political knowledge; and building social movement networks. While these different elements of transformative agroecology learning were present across EAKEN, they were unevenly developed and, in many cases, not systematized. The framework can help to strategically and reflexively systematize and strengthen a transformative agroecology learning approach as a key building block for food sovereignty.
Journal Article
Understanding Farm Diversity to Promote Agroecological Transitions
Agroecology is increasingly promoted by scientists, non-governmental organisations (NGO’s), international organisations and peasant movements as an approach to foster the transition to sustainable and equitable food systems. The challenges to agroecological transitions are not the same for all farmers, as they can face different social and bio-physical conditions. We developed a farm typology combining participatory and quantitative methodologies to assess and categorise farm diversity and its implications for developing strategies to promote agroecological transitions. The participatory typology was developed during workshops to acquire insights on local farmers’ perceptions and knowledge, and to generate hypotheses on family farm diversity. The participatory-based hypotheses were tested in the quantitative farm characterisation, which provided information on household characteristics, production strategies, land use, participation in public policies and extension services. Farms were located in Zona da Mata, Minas Gerais, Brazil, which harbour a wide diversity of farmers and where different actors have been engaged in agroecological transitions for the past 30 years. Our main findings were: (i) In the face of agroecological transitions, farmers differ in their management strategies, practices and principles; (ii) farmers identified as agroecological typically had stronger engagements in a network composed of farmers’ organisations, universities and NGO’s; (iii) agroecological farms showed great potential to provide a wide range of ecosystem services as they featured a higher crop diversity and a higher number of crops for self-consumption; (iv) to promote agroecology, it is crucial to recognise peasant knowledge, to change the dominant discourse on agriculture through social movement dynamics, and to generate support from public policies and funds; and (v) participatory and quantitative methodologies can be combined for more precise and relevant assessments of agroecological transitions.
Journal Article
How climate change impacted the collapse of the Ming dynasty
Based on the reconstructed temperatures, precipitation changes, and occurrences of extreme climate events, together with historical records on fiscal deterioration, food crises, and the frequencies of popular unrest, rebellions and wars, we identified three principal ways in which climate change contributed to the collapse in the Ming dynasty. Firstly, cooling, aridification, and desertification during a cold period destroyed the military farm system, which was the main supply system for the provisioning of government troops on the northern frontiers; these impacts increased the military expenditure from 64 % of total government expenditure in 1548–1569 to 76 % in 1570–1589 and thus aggravated the national fiscal crisis that occurred during the late Ming dynasty. Secondly, climate deterioration (e.g., cooling, aridification, and an increase in the frequencies of frost- and drought-related disasters, etc.) led to a 20–50 % reduction in the per capita production of raw grain in most areas of China, which resulted in widespread food crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of social structures during the last several decades of the Ming dynasty. Thirdly, the severe droughts occurring in 1627–1643 were a key trigger to the peasantry uprising. These droughts also played a significant role to promote the peasantry uprising, especially reviving the peasantry troops by recruitment of famine victims when they nearly perished in 1633 and 1638, and severely disrupting the food supply for the government troops, resulting in the final defeat of the government troops by the peasantry troops. This study contributes to an understanding of the climate-related mechanisms behind the collapse of the Ming dynasty, and provides a historical case study that enhances our understanding of the nature of interactions between climate change and social vulnerability.
Journal Article
Formaciones actuales de lo campesino en América Latina: conceptualizaciones, sujetos/as políticos/as y territorios en disputa
Despite the centrality in the study of the peasantry in Latin America, for various disciplines, this category is still bound to static images of a group defined according to the State and capital. In this article, we explain the need to study the situated reality — historically, geographically and politically — of the individuals and groups that fit into this category of the peasantry. The issue concerning peasants is a pressing one in view of the current economic, political and socio-environmental crisis affecting large sectors of the Latin American population. This crisis is due, among other dynamics, to the advance of extractivism, the exacerbation of inequality, environmental deterioration, the dispossession of marginalized communities, and criminalization of the social movement. In order to further the critical analysis of this issue, from a historical, spatial, relational, and political perspective, we will delve into recent conceptualizations of the peasant, and into how political subjects and spatialities are mutually constructed.
Journal Article
Crop diversification and farm household food and nutrition security in Northern Ghana
Farm households in Africa adopt resource allocation tools such as crop diversification to minimize risk exposure and safeguard their food and nutrition security. This study uses primary data and an ordered probit model to examine how crop diversification impacts the food security outcomes of rural farmers in northern Ghana. The findings revealed that along with other factors like access to extension services and use of soil fertility management practices, crop diversification increased food access and reduced the food insecurity experience of households. As a result, policies targeted at improving the food and nutrition security of peasant households should promote adoption of diversified crop production and use of sustainable soil management practices like composting.
Journal Article