Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles Seminars and Workshop
Co-sponsored by the JHU Center for Africana Studies
Monday, March 23, 2015
11 a.m.- 1 p.m. (526 Mergenthaler)
Gillian Hart
Professor, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley; Visiting Professor, Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand
“Relational Comparison Revisited: South Africa and India since the 1990s”
Background Readings:
- “Relational Comparison Revisited” Abstract
- Rethinking the South African Crisis, Chapters 1 & 5
- Denaturalizing Dispossession
Comments by:
- Rina Agarwala (Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University)
- Sefika Kumral (Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University)
- Juan Obarrio (Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University)
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
3-5 p.m. (526 Mergenthaler)
Arrighi’s “Labor Supplies in Historical Perspective” Revisited
Open meeting of Beverly Silver’s graduate seminar on “Labor in the World System” with discussion taking off from Arrighi’s 1973 “Labor Supplies in Historical Perspective” and Arrighi, Aschoff, Scully’s 2010 “Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits”
Background Readings:
- Giovanni Arrighi Labour Supplies in Historical Perspective: A Study of the Proletarianization of the African Peasantry in Rhodesia
- Giovanni Arrighi, Nicole Aschoff and Ben Scully, Accumulation by Dispossession in Its Limits: The Southern Africa Paradigm Revisited
Opening comments by:
- Gillian Hart, University of California, Berkeley and University of the Witwatersrand
- Lungisile Ntsebeza, University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Peter Jacobs, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa
- Benjamin Scully, University of Witswatersrand, South Africa
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Workshop: Land, Labor & Environmental Rights Struggles:
South Africa and India in World-Historical Perspective
Location: 526 Mergenthaler
8:30 a.m. – Coffee
9-9:30 a.m.
Opening Comments by Beverly J. Silver, Director, Arrighi Center for Global Studies
“An Arrighi Center Perspective on Land, Labor & Environmental Rights and Struggles”
9:30-10 a.m.
“New Forms of Elite Land Accumulation in South Africa”
Comment: Bill Martin, Department of Sociology, Binghamton University
Background Readings:
- Propoor Rural Development (from State of the Nation 2014, HSRC Press)
- Workshop Presentation Outline
- Whither Agrarian Reform in South Africa
10-10:30 a.m.
Ricardo Jacobs, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
“An Urban Proletariat with Peasant Characteristics: Land Occupations and Livestock Raising in the City of Cape Town”
Comment: Gillian Hart, Geography, UC Berkeley and University of Witswatersrand
- Background Reading: “An Urban Proletariat with Peasant Characteristics” Abstract
10:30-11 a.m. – General Discussion
11-11:30 a.m. – Coffee Break
11:30 a.m.-noon
Michael Levien, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
“From Primitive Accumulation to Regime of Dispossession: Theses on India’s Land Question”
Comment: Ali Khan, Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University
- Review of A History of Economic Science in Japan, by Ali Khan
- Background Reading:Theses on India’s Land Question
noon-12:30 p.m.
“Contemporary Agrarian and Land Struggles in South Africa”
Comment: Sara Berry, Department of History, Johns Hopkins University
- Background Reading:Ntsebeza, The Promise of Land (Chapters 1, 3,6,13)
12:30-1:30 p.m. – General Discussion
Thursday, March 26, 2015
6-7:30 p.m. (526 Mergenthaler)
Global Social Protest Research Working Group Meeting
Friday, March 27, 2015
noon-1:30 p.m. (266 Mergenthaler)
Satendra Kumar, Delhi School of Economics
“Aspirations without Opportunities: Agrarian Change & Inequality in Rural North India”