Class, politics and dynamic accumulation processes around the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, 2005–2014
Title: Class, politics and dynamic accumulation processes around the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, 2005–2014
Author(s): Ana Sofia Ganho
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: ROAPE Publications Ltd.
Quotation: Ganho, Ana Sofia (2022) Class, politics and dynamic accumulation processes around the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, 2005–2014, Review of African Political Economy, 49:171, 107-137, DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2050557
Abstract: This study levels an international political economy lens at the development of the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, by examining how class relations shaped and were shaped by global trends, Chinese resources and Mozambican dynamic accumulation interests. The Sino-Mozambican rice project (2005–2014) is analysed as three projects benefiting different groups, with a focus on producer selection and allocation of means of production, in dialogue with the historical dynamics of agrarian accumulation and the political economy of Mozambique. The paper argues that the project has served the expansionist interests of the ruling capitalist group associated with central government circles, limiting land-based possibilities at province level. In addition, the plan to locally transform small producers into rural capitalists through ‘modern’ Chinese methods has failed to confront the historical interdependence of the commercial and so-called family sectors and the diversity of livelihood sources for the reproduction of food and labour.
Identifier: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2050557
Category: Other Publications
Class, politics and dynamic accumulation processes around the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, 2005–2014 by Ana Sofia Ganho levels a Marxist political economy lens at the development of the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo valley. Focusing on a defined time period, 2005–14, it interrogates the ways that class dynamics shaped, and were shaped by, China’s development cooperation model for Mozambique, and examines changing Mozambican accumulation interests in the context of sudden price rises in agricultural commodities. The article aims to understand how this project relates to Mozambique’s dominant strategy for capital accumulation, such as the dynamics it has enabled for capitalist factions in power. But it also seeks to comprehend the rural differentiation dynamics that the project has generated, particularly with regard to the desideratum to create a new group of rural capitalists. Together with historically situated challenges, this can provide crucial information about the form(s) that the agrarian question of transition to a capitalist agriculture is taking in Mozambique.
Abstract:
This study levels an international political economy lens at the development of the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, by examining how class relations shaped and were shaped by global trends, Chinese resources and Mozambican dynamic accumulation interests. The paper argues that the project has served the expansionist interests of the ruling capitalist group associated with central government circles, limiting land-based possibilities at province level. In addition, the plan to locally transform small producers into rural capitalists through ‘modern’ Chinese methods has failed to confront the historical interdependence of the commercial and so-called family sectors and the diversity of livelihood sources for the reproduction of food and labour.
Quotation:
Ganho, Ana Sofia (2022) Class, politics and dynamic accumulation processes around the Sino-Mozambican rice project in the lower Limpopo, 2005–2014, Review of African Political Economy, 49:171, 107-137, DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2022.2050557
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