Rethinking The Social Sciences With Sam Moyo

This book brings together renowned scholars from four continents to celebrate the lifelong and seminal contribution of Professor Sam Moyo to the social sciences. Moyo was a Zimbabwean scholar whose intellectual trajectory was part of the emergence of a critical scholarship based in the realities and traditions of Africa and the Third World.

In contrast to neo-classical mainstream approaches to economics, this innovative Modern Guide addresses the complex reality of economic development as an inherently uneven process, exploring the ways of theorizing and empirically exploring the mechanisms with which the unevenness manifests itself. It covers a wide array of issues influencing wealth and poverty, technological innovation, ecology and sustainability, financialization, population, gender, and geography, considering the dynamics of cumulative causations created by the interplay between these factors.

This book provides a focus on some of the main markers and challenges that are at the core of the study of structural transformations in contemporary capitalism and their implications for labour in the Global South. It examines the diverse perspectives and regional and social variations that characterise labour relations as a result of the uneven development which is an important facet of the intensification of capitalist accumulation.. The book provides important insights into the impact of the crises of capitalism on the wellbeing of labour at different historical junctures. Some of the issues covered by it include the conditions of work, and the changing composition of laboring classes and/or working people. The chapters also throw light on the multiple trajectories in the development of labour relations and employment in the Global South, especially after the ascendancy and domination of neoliberal finance capitalism. Some of the major aspects considered by the essays include the decentering of production and development of global value systems, crisis of social reproduction, and the rising informalisation of work.

Exploring the emerging and vibrant field of critical agrarian studies, this comprehensive Handbook offers interdisciplinary insights from both leading scholars and activists to understand agrarian life, livelihoods, formations and processes of change. It highlights the development of the field, which is characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism and innovation.

A rethinking of contemporary social theory that provides a vision about the modern world through key ideas developed by 'maverick' anthropologists.

This book examines the impact of neoliberalism on peasant agriculture as a key livelihood strategy in Southern and Eastern Africa, against the background of the current development crisis and the crossroads that Southern and Eastern Africa faces. It systematically analyses how the neoliberal architecture has deepened extroverted production for capitalist accumulation and how this has been to the detriment of the rural labour force and small scale and communal landowners. Apart from examining how neoliberalism has triggered land alienations, the book further argues that such policies have also impacted negatively on food security in a number of ways. The book presents empirical evidence through twelve case studies, emerging from in-depth original fieldwork carried out in seven countries in the Southern and Eastern African region. This book is a must-read for scholars of economics,sociology, anthropology, history, agrarian studies and political science, as well as practitioners and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of the impact of the agrarian neoliberal restructuring on the peasantry in Southern Africa.

This book presents an overview of the economic policies adopted by the Bolivarian governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela between 1998 and 2018, and the economic and social results of these policies. The recent history of Venezuela has attracted much attention due to Chávez’s and Maduro’s self-declared search for socialism since the beginning of the 21st century and the economic trajectory of the country in this period, which experienced significant economic growth during the international oil boom in the first decade of the century, followed by a huge economic crisis in the second decade. The volume adopts an economic history approach, taking into account both economic and social variables to analyze the Venezuelan overall socio-economic performance since 1998. Drawing on official documents and statistics, as well as on the available literature, it presents an empirical analysis of Venezuelan economic and social histories during the Bolivarian period, describing and analyzing the achievements and limits of the policies adopted between 1998 and 2018. Society and Economy in Venezuela: An Overview of the Bolivarian Period (1998-2018) will be a useful introduction to sociologists, political economists, political scientists, economic historians and other social scientists interested in understanding the multiple interrelations between economy and society in Bolivarian Venezuela. “This book offers a thoughtful, committed and illuminating analysis of the socialist experiment in Venezuela. Its strengths and weaknesses are examined in unprecedented detail, in order to identify the drivers and limitation of 'socialism in the 21st century'. An essential work for scholars, students and citizens concerned with Venezuela.” – Alfredo Saad-Filho, King's College London

"The Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism examines unequal commercial, trade, and investment gains at the international level and explores how countries and nations can have exploitative relations. The book contains thirty-four chapters written by academics and experts in the field of international political economy. The chapters in the Handbook look at the history of economic imperialism from the early modern age to the present. They demonstrate the persistence of economic imperialism in today's postcolonial world and the enduring control wielded by great powers even after the end of formal empire. The book reveals how emerging powers are expanding economic control in new geographic and geopolitical contexts. The Handbook highlights the significance of economic imperialism in the structures, relations, processes, and ideas that help sustain poverty and conflict worldwide"--