Abstract

Under the guise of 'development', a globalizing capitalism has continued to cause poverty through dispossession and the exploitation of labour across the Global South. This process has been met with varied forms of rural resistance by local movements of displaced farm workers, small and landless (women) peasants, and indigenous peoples in South and East Asia, the Pacific and Africa, who are resisting the forced appropriation of their land, the exploitation of labour and the destruction of their ecosystems and ways of life.

In this provocative new collection, engaged scholars and activists combine grounded case studies with both Marxist and anti-colonial analyses, suggesting that the developmental project is a continuation of the colonial project. The authors then demonstrate the ways in which these local struggles have attempted to resist colonization and dispossession in the rural belt, thereby contributing essential movement-relevant knowledge on these experiences in the Global South.

A vital addition to the fields of critical development studies, political-sociology, agrarian studies and the anthropology of resistance, this book addresses academics and analysts who have either minimized or overlooked local resistances to colonial capital, especially in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions.

‘Addressing the accelerating dispossession of cultures, this timely collection reveals colonial continuities in new forms of grassroots resistance. It is a powerful cross-regional set of essays foregrounding local voice in an era of global extractivism.’
Philip McMichael, author of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

‘Peasants, indigenous people, and fisherfolk confound capitalism's best efforts to control them. This book shares the strategies that some of the planet's most inspirational groups use to stand their ground. A terrific compilation of rousing resistance for a post-capitalist world.’
Raj Patel, University of Texas at Austin

‘An impressive collection of engaged researchers from around the world take us deep into some of the most important frontline struggles of our time, providing critical insights for anyone active in resisting colonization and land grabs.’
Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN

‘A smart and theoretically innovative book that belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in anti-colonial, indigenous scholarship on rural resistance as central to the political economy of capitalist development.’
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism without Borders

‘An indispensable contribution to a non-Eurocentric world-view. Richly documenting the genocidal and ecocidal history of (neo)colonialism, and even more importantly the fightback, this book reveals a new social order emerging at the cutting edge of struggle.’
Robert Biel, author of The Entropy of Capitalism

'A wide-ranging, comprehensive and insightful account of dispossession and resistance from the global south … a much-nuanced and sophisticated analysis in comparison to those who treat the land question merely as another instance of market imperfection and institutional failure.'
Journal of Asian and African Studies

'The diverse analytical frameworks used in the collection, from Marxist political economy to postcolonial theory, will undoubtedly enrich the debates and contribute to the vibrant fields of critical development studies and critical agrarian studies, as well as social movement theories.'
Canadian Journal of Development Studies

'An empirically rich and theoretically stimulating collection of essays on the long-term and ongoing practices and forms of rural resistance to capitalist-driven and state-enforced land enclosures in the Global South.'
Community Development Journal