Land Reform Revisited

The rich empirical material presented in Land Reform Revisited engages with timely debates about land use, land reform, neoliberal state planning, power relations and questions of identity and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa.

Despite 250 years of land reform all over the World, important land inequalities remain, especially in Latin America and Southern Africa.While in these countries, there is near consensus on the need for redistribution, much controversy persists around how to redistribute land peacefully and legally, often blocking progress on implementation.This book focuses on the "how" of land redistribution in order to forge greater consensus among land reform practitioners and enable them to make better choices on the mechanisms of land reform. Reviews and case studies describe and analyze the al.

This publication is a compilation of reports on research projects initiated, under way, or completed in fiscal year 2001 (July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2001). The abstracts cover 150 research projects from the World Bank and grouped under 11 major headings including poverty and social development, health and population, education, labor and employment, environment, infrastructure and urban development, and agriculture and rural development. The abstracts detail the questions addressed, the analytical methods used, the findings to date and their policy implications. Each abstract identifies the expected completion date of each project, the research team, and reports or publications produced.

This book interrogates the inevitability and practicability of full-scale, land-intensive capitalist agriculture in China, whilst analyzing the labor-intensive industrious revolution as an alternative rural development path. It presents a critical account of the recent rise of agrarian capitalism as a force that would undermine hundreds of millions of people's livelihoods in the populous country. The Land Question in China traces the roots of the industrious revolution in China back to the eighteenth century, drawing comparisons between contemporary rural development and economic prosperity in the mid-Qing dynasty. In the context of neoliberal restructuring, it argues that vigorous rural development with broad access to land offers a solution to mitigate precarious urban employment and population pressure, while the transfer of land from villagers to large producers and urban investors will exacerbate these problems. Comparisons with South Africa and the East Asian economies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan further illustrate this and help to develop a new interpretation of the industrious revolution and its contemporary relevance. Providing a critical examination of the "new land reform" in China from a world historical perspective, this book will be useful to students and scholars of sociology, economics, and development, as well as Chinese Studies.

Based on new evidence from in-depth field surveys, this book addresses the unique situation of countries that remain deeply engaged in agriculture, and proposes a set of policy orientations which could facilitate the process of rural change.

Publisher description

The Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Zimbabwe has emerged as a highly contested reform process both nationally and internationally. The image of it has all too often been that of the widespread displacement and subsequent replacement of various people, agricultural-related production systems, facets and processes. The reality, however, is altogether more complex. Providing new and much-needed empirical research, this in-depth book examines how processes such as land acquisition, allocation, transitional production outcomes, social life, gender and tenure, have influenced and been influenced by the forces driving the programme. It also explores the ways in which the land reform programme has created a new agrarian structure based on small- to medium-scale farmers. In attempting to resolve the problematic issues the reforms have raised, the author argues that it is this new agrarian formation which provides the greatest scope for improving Zimbabwe's agriculture and development. Based on a broader geographical scope than any previous study carried out on the subject, this is a landmark work on a subject of considerable controversy.

This open access book offers unique in-depth, comprehensive, and comparative analyses of the motivations, context, and outcomes of recent land reforms in Africa. Whereas a considerable number of land reforms have been carried out by African governments since the 1990s, no systematic analysis on their meaning has so far been conducted. In the age of land reform, Africa has seen drastic rural changes. Analysing the relationship between those reforms and change, the chapters in this book reveal not only their socio-economic outcomes, such as accelerated marketisation of land, but also their political outcomes, which have often been contrasting. Countries such as Rwanda and Mozambique have utilised land reform to strengthen state control over land, but other countries, such as Ghana and Zambia, have seen the rise in power of traditional chiefs in managing the land. The comparative perspective of this book clarifies new features of African social changes, which are carefully investigated by area experts. Providing new perspectives on recent land reform, this book will have a considerable impact on scholars as well as policymakers.