Critical Agrarian Studies: Land, Labour and Livelihoods

The Critical Agrarian Studies cluster brings together scholars from different disciplines and fields who are engaged in the study of agrarian issues from a critical perspective.

Vision and Scope

Critical Agrarian Studies is a broad and pluralist field of study with a common focus: paying attention to and understanding “life and labour on and of the land”. It is critical of the mainstream but also examines the theoretical and political conditions of possibility for alternatives. Agrarian (agriculture, but also forestry, silviculture, aquaculture, fishing, animal husbandry and resource extraction) issues are intimately connected to the processes and dynamics of global development and underdevelopment, and to the history of global capitalism. Agrarian studies has undergone a revival since the 1970s and 1980s, when interest was reignited in turn of the 20^th century debates around what is known as the agrarian question – whether or how capitalism will emerge in agriculture and farming, and what will be the fate of peasant farmers? While maintaining links to its original Marxist framing, this question has been renewed and extended by contemporary agrarian scholars. We can now think of multiple agrarian questions: of capital, but also of labour, gender, peasants, social reproduction, land, food, ecologies, and decolonization.

In this spirit of multiple questions, the members of the Critical Agrarian Studies cluster at Wageningen study and debate the dynamics (including processes of change) of agrarian life, livelihoods, labour (including migrants’) and land (including seeds, soil, water and other relevant resources) in both the global south and north. These are particularly relevant amid the con-constituted crises of social and ecological reproduction today. We engage with a plurality of approaches, from Marxist agrarian political economy, rural sociology, anthropology, ecological and other heterodox economics, history, political ecology, political sociology and geography. We welcome scholars from all scientific realms! The research interests of the cluster include, but are not limited to: the class dynamics of agrarian and environmental change, land resource politics, labour regimes, social reproduction, livelihood pathways and configurations, farming styles and cultural repertoires, farming practices, (global) commodity chains, agrarian extractivism, the political economy of markets, the politics of rural development, including the agency of the powerful and of the exploited and oppressed, agribusiness expansion and agriculture-industry relations, agroecology and sustainable agriculture, food regimes, new and contested technologies in agriculture, agrarian politics and the rural roots of authoritarian populism, resistance and alternatives, social movements, the agrarian dynamics of climate change adaptation and mitigation, rural-urban entanglements, and food security and food sovereignty.

The cluster welcomes new members from across the university.

Contact

Interested in joining or collaborating with us? For any questions about the Critical Agrarian Studies Cluster, feel free to reach out to Mark Vicol (mark.vicol@wur.nl) or Alberto Alonso-Fradejas (alberto.alonso-fradejas@wur.nl)