Hundreds of transnational private governance organizations (TPGOs) have emerged in recent decades to govern social and environmental conditions of production using voluntary standards. A debate... Show moreHundreds of transnational private governance organizations (TPGOs) have emerged in recent decades to govern social and environmental conditions of production using voluntary standards. A debate persists over whether the ties among different TPGOs and other organizations create a professional community that affects the behavior of TPGOs. To help resolve this debate, we analyze multiple ties among agriculture TPGOs to offer a more robust exploration of community structures and their potential effects for three forms of TPGO behavior - coordination, collaboration, and isomorphism. Our aggregate measure of ties reveals a thin community dominated by older TPGOs and TPGOs advancing a broad notion of sustainability that were created by Solidaridad, the World Wildlife Fund, and/or Unilever. The clearest community structures are built from ties that exhibit the potential for not actual collaboration, coordination, and isomorphism. Thus, while there exists convergence toward an emergent TPGO-community, obstacles remain to more intense behavioral effects for TPGOs. Show less
Weert, J. de; Buijs, S.; Tamis, W.L.M.; Zelfde, M. van 't 2019
China’s influence in neighboring Central Asian states is growing at a fast pace. Since the launch of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative to accelerate China’s engagement in Central Asia and... Show moreChina’s influence in neighboring Central Asian states is growing at a fast pace. Since the launch of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative to accelerate China’s engagement in Central Asia and beyond, nearly all Chinese activity in this region has been gathered under OBOR. OBOR now seems to cover a plethora of spatially and temporally expanding state and privately driven projects. In this paper, I discuss large- and small-scale Chinese farm enterprises in Tajikistan, in which discussions around China’s “global land investments” and OBOR intersect. Beneath abstract conceptualizations of OBOR and the Chinese presence in Central Asia, my analysis shows that Chinese land investments in Tajikistan are shaped by Chinese dynamics of agrarian change and are contingent upon country-specific conditions. Rather than state-led endeavors as is often assumed, the main Chinese actors in Tajik agriculture are capitalist yet partially state-embedded enterprises driven by profit-oriented goals. Chinese farm enterprises tap into specific market demands that are either unanswered or underdeveloped in Tajikistan, or which have emerged due to the growing number of Chinese consumers in Tajikistan. The nature and drivers of Chinese land acquisitions in Tajikistan shed light on the various, sometimes competing, factors driving China’s broader foreign “land rush,” in Central Asia (and beyond). Show less
This book is based on iterative multi-sited ethnography at Merrivale farm, Tavaka village, and various sites in South Africa. The author reveals how the dynamics generated by fast-track potentially... Show moreThis book is based on iterative multi-sited ethnography at Merrivale farm, Tavaka village, and various sites in South Africa. The author reveals how the dynamics generated by fast-track potentially offer new development opportunities - specifically for women. The findings challenge existing expert notions and opinions about women's rural land use, livelihoods, and rural development. The book examines how negotiations and bargaining by women with family, state, and traditional actors have proved useful in accessing land in Mwenezi district, Zimbabwe. The hidden, complex, and innovative ways adopted by women to access land and shape livelihoods based on transitory mobility are examined. The role of collective action, conflicts, conflict resolution, and women's agency in overcoming the challenges associated with trading in South Africa are examined within the ambit of the sustainable livelihoods framework, a gendered approach to land reform and social networks Show less
The present report contains the result of a general survey, carried out in June-July 1999, on farming practices performed by the inhabitants of Nakuru town, Kenya. The two major objectives of the... Show moreThe present report contains the result of a general survey, carried out in June-July 1999, on farming practices performed by the inhabitants of Nakuru town, Kenya. The two major objectives of the survey were: 1) to collect basic data on farming by the Nakuru townspeople and 2) to provide the municipal authorties of Nakuru with information on urban agriculture. The survey provided data on such topics as the extent of farming in Nakuru town in terms of both geographical distribution and numbers of households, the types of farming in town, the amounts of food produced, the types of inputs used, the constraints which farming in town faces, the characteristics of the urban farming households as opposed to the non-farming households, the reasons to farm in town and the importance attached to it, and the extent of rural farming by Nakuru town dwellers. Show less
This bibliography is a listing of all materials that have ever been published or written on the subject of urban agriculture in Africa up to 1998. It records all books, chapters in books,... Show moreThis bibliography is a listing of all materials that have ever been published or written on the subject of urban agriculture in Africa up to 1998. It records all books, chapters in books, discussion and conference papers, periodical literature and all types of academic theses, dissertations and unpublished documents. The bibliography contains 526 entries organized in six chapters, namely Africa general, Northern Africa, Western Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa. Apart from Chapter 2, which contains the entries dealing with Africa in general, the five regional chapters are organized alphabetically according to the respective countries in each region. Show less
The few existing studies on the response of labour to the economic crisis and structural adjustment in African countries tend to focus on the (oppositional) relations between the State and central... Show moreThe few existing studies on the response of labour to the economic crisis and structural adjustment in African countries tend to focus on the (oppositional) relations between the State and central labour organizations. They largely ignore the response of workers and unions at the workplace. This article describes how workers and unions in the tea estates of Cameroon have dealt with the economic crisis and structural adjusment. It shows that the workers have adopted various strategies to cope with the structural adjustment measures planned and implemented by the management in close cooperation with the State-controlled unions. Two striking facts emerging from the analysis are that the majority of the estate workers have never completely abandoned their 'traditional' militancy, and that gender differences in the degree and modes of labour resistance tend to be slight. The data are derived from fieldwork carried out in 1991-1993 in the tea estates of the Cameroon Development Corporation, the largest agro-industrial parastatal in Cameroon. Show less
