Overview

Small-scale agricultural producers in the peripheral world are often condescendingly assumed to be a single social class (‘the peasantry’) to be pitted against the state or corporation. This book challenges this rather idealistic view by demonstrating that under current capitalist social relations (competition, efficiency and productivity, and profit maximisation), these agricultural producers have been differentiated into different agrarian classes by exploitation. By comparing two different contexts of local agrarian change in Indonesia—rice cultivation in Java and oil palm in Sumatra—this book exposes the different class locations of the agrarian classes among petty agricultural producers and the class relations between them. These are often inextricably linked to gender, clanship and generational issues. The power of class dynamics crucially shapes how agricultural production in both rice and oil palm is organised. The share received by different agrarian classes from the production site then prominently shapes the different nature of class reproduction for each agrarian class. This analysis demonstrates that the different agrarian classes possess different capacities and responses in their relation to the state or corporations. Any real emancipation attempt in the Indonesian countryside (and beyond) must start from a proper understanding of these class dynamics. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on agrarian change, the political economy of development, rural development and Marxist political economy.

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9781032212180

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Reviews

"""This is a fine study of class differentiation in rural Indonesia, the first by an Indonesian scholar for a long time. It is based on fieldwork in two villages, one centred on rice in Java and the other on palm oil in Sumatra. The book skilfully traces the dynamics of class and generational reproduction, including non-farming activities and earnings of different classes. It is of great interest and value to those studying rural change in other regions of the global South"". Henry Bernstein, SOAS ""This is a fine study of class differentiation in rural Indonesia, the first by an Indonesian scholar for a long time. It is based on fieldwork in two villages, one centred on rice in Java and the other on palm oil in Sumatra. The book skilfully traces the dynamics of class and generational reproduction, including non-farming activities and earnings of different classes. It is of great interest and value to those studying rural change in other regions of the global South."" Henry Bernstein, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK ""Overall, Habibi’s book is an important contribution to the literature on agrarian change in the contemporary era from a critical political economy perspective."" Venkatesh B. Athreya, Retired Professor of Economics, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli,"

Author Information

Muchtar Habibi is a Lecturer in the Department of Public Policy and Management, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia.

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