Land Deals, Wage Labour, and Everyday Politics | Land Portal

Informations sur la ressource

Date of publication: 
juin 2019
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
10.3390/land8060094
License of the resource: 
Copyright details: 
© 2019 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article.

This article explores the question of political struggles for inclusion on an oil palm land deal in Ghana. It examines the employment dynamics and the everyday politics of rural wage workers on a transnational oil palm plantation which is located in a predominantly migrant and settler society where large-scale agricultural production has only been introduced within the past decade. It shows that, by the nature of labour organization, as well as other structural issues, workers do not benefit equally from their work on plantations. The main form of farmworkers’ political struggles in the studied case has been the ‘everyday forms of resistance’ against exploitation and for better terms of incorporation. Particularly, they express agency through acts such as absenteeism and non-compliance, as well as engaging in other productive activities which enable them to maintain their basic food sovereignty/security. Nonetheless, their multiple and individualized everyday politics are not necessarily changing the structure of social relations associated with capitalist agriculture. Overall, this paper contributes to the land grab literature by providing context specific dynamics of the impacts of, and politics around land deals, and how they are shaped by a multiplicity of factors-beyond class.

Auteurs et éditeurs

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Gyapong, Y. Adwoa

Publisher(s): 

Fournisseur de données

Concentration géographique

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