Rural Elites Research Articles

Gender, kinship and relatedness in fifteenth-century Tibet: The biography of Chokyi Dronma (1422–1455) through anthropological eyes

ABSTRACT A 15th century Tibetan biography offers a rare glimpse into the life of the Tibetan princess Chokyi Dronma (1422–1455), who experienced marriage, childbirth, the death of her daughter and eventually became a Buddhist nun and a famous spiritual master. Recognised as an emanation of the Buddhist deity Dorje Phagmo, she became the founding figure of Tibet’s most famous female reincarnation line. Written close to the events by one of her fellow monks and rich in daily life details, this account offers an ideal opportunity to explore gender and kinship practices among Tibetan rural elites of the time. It also gives a rare insight into the hurdles that women faced when they decided to challenge social and cultural conventions to pursue spiritual aims. An anthropologically informed study of this manuscript offers a unique opportunity to explore kinship terminology and practices as well as particular instances of kinship politics at a time in which marriage alliances were essential for the relationships among Tibet's regional polities. It also offers useful insights into kinship networks that underpinned patronage practices, highlighting the often mis-recognised importance of women (including their role in printing projects). Finally, it enables the exploration of Tibetan spiritual kinship and reincarnation contributing to wider debates in the anthropology of kinship and relatedness. Substances and spiritual principles appear to be symbolic fields connecting past and present – they constitute the backdrop for practical negotiation not only in Chokyi Dronma’s biography but also in many other historical sources and ethnographic cases.

Settler masculinity and labour: the post-pioneer era gender order and New Zealand’s Great Strike of 1913

ABSTRACT In the two and half decades before World War One, a new settler gender order began to emerge. In one aspect of that shift, the man-alone masculine ideal of the pioneer era, though still culturally powerful, no longer represented the practices that characterized this evolving settler society. New competing masculinities highly correlated with the changing landscape of agricultural and industrial labour came to define key nodes in this new gender order. Those masculinities played a powerful role in reshaping the culture and political economy of Aotearoa/New Zealand and other settler societies. This article looks at New Zealand’s Great Strike of 1913 – one of the numerous labour actions by industrial workers in settler societies around the globe in this period – to analyse the competing ideas of settler masculinity embodied by Pākehā farmers, industrial workers, and urban and rural elites. Focusing on the ideology and practices of the different expressions of hegemonic masculinity witnessed during and before the 1913 strike sheds light on some of the more intricate relations of power in the settler gender order. It also illuminates some of the hidden nuances of settler colonial logic imbedded in the gendered concepts of individualism, independence, work, and militarism.

Criminal entrepreneurs as pioneers, intermediaries, and arbitrageurs in borderland economies

Many discussions of mafia and criminal entrepreneurs typically focus on violence and illegality, and less on their possible roles in rural transformation, even when they are located in borderland economies linking the subsistence cultivators of illicit crops to regional and global markets. This paper assesses the life stories of drug lords, the Castaño brothers of Colombia and Roberto Suárez Gomez of Bolivia, to draw inferences into how such rural elites in the illicit drugs trade are not only specialists in crime but are also actors who regulate and manipulate, often coercively, access to land and resources, mobilise labour and shape its divisions, and promote certain forms of capital accumulation. This paper contends that a better understanding of the roles of these rural elites as pioneers for capital, intermediaries in commodity chains, and arbitrageurs between state and borderlands may provide ways of unpacking key challenges to peacebuilding and economic transformation in borderlands where illicit economies thrive.

Education and Local Elite Authority: The Study of Traditional Local Elite Strategies in Maintaining Authority of Muslim Communities in Rural Java

The studies at village communities generally relate to poverty issues, circulation of village elites, formal village leadership and village community participation. Other studies discuss the determination of cultural values ​​on agrarian differentiation, farmer resistance, and state interference in rural economy. This study relates with rural local elites, especially socio-religious field. The study focus is how the religious elites in villages maintain their authority. This study uses a qualitative approach. The study results show that although the village religious elite and their group members are no longer dominate the rural economy and control the formal village leadership, but this group still occupies a high level in society. One element dominated by group members from religious elite is education, especially religious knowledge. Keywords: Education, Authority, Village Local Elites. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-2-09 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

The rural social contract in Morocco and Algeria: reshaping through economic liberalisation and new rules and practices

ABSTRACT Against the background of degrading livelihoods, mounting inequalities and related protests in rural areas of Morocco and Algeria, this article mobilises the concept of the rural social contract to analyze changes in the strategic alliances between central regimes and rural elites. It reveals how economic liberalisation reforms have affected the agricultural sector and changed the way both regimes grant their supporters access to water and land in exchange for loyalty. It also highlights that in order to maintain social peace in a context of increasing difficulties for the farmers, regimes tolerate rule-transgression in the use of water, land, and other production resources which, in turn, threatens the sustainability of current arrangements.

The perversion of public land distribution by landed elites: Power, inequality and development in Colombia

• Colombia granted huge tracts of public land to “poor” farmers since 1960. • We study the heterogeneous effects of land grants on all 1100+ municipalities. • In small-farmers districts, inequality fell and development improved. • In elite districts, land concentration and inequality rose, and development fell. • How? Elites use patron-client ties to distort local policies to their benefit. Over two centuries, Colombia transferred vast quantities of public land into private hands. Much of this process was justified publicly in terms of giving land to the landless and reducing rural poverty. And yet Colombia retains one of the highest concentrations of land ownership in the world. Why? Analyzing the period 1960–2010, we show that the effects of public land distribution across 1100+ municipalities are highly heterogeneous. Where small and medium-sized farms dominate, land distribution increased average farm size, decreased land inequality, and accelerated local development. But where land was concentrated in the hands of a rural elite, distributed land was diverted to bigger farms, resulting in fewer small and more large farms, greater plot size dispersion, and lower levels of development. We explore whether these effects flow through voter turnout, political competition, or public expenditure and taxation. Land distribution increases turnout, makes politics more competitive, and increases public service provision. But landed elites use patron-client ties to distort local policy and decision-making to their benefit. Land distribution’s secondary, institutional effects on the distribution of power outweigh its primary effects on the distribution of land.

Political economy of agricultural electricity tariffs: Rural politics of Indian States

Although electricity is one of the most important determinants of successful industrialization, many countries do not provide sufficient amounts of electricity at reasonable prices for industrialization. In order to inquire into the causes behind this, we investigate the factors that influence electricity tariffs for agricultural consumers at the state level in India. We conduct a dynamic panel data analysis using data for seventeen major states in India for the period from 1992 to 2012. Our estimation results suggest that as the Gini coefficient of landowning rises, the agricultural electricity tariffs become lower. However, the rural population share does not significantly affect agricultural electricity tariffs. These results indicate that state governments are responsive to the demands of large farmers (rural elites) but not to the demands of farmers more generally (rural masses). Our results are consistent with elite politics but not mass politics. Low electricity tariffs for agricultural consumers have caused insufficient investment in the infrastructure necessary for the expansion of industries, as well as high electricity tariffs for industrial consumers, which may have adversely affected the industrialization of state economies in India.

Status Creation and Maintenance among the Delaware Valley Elite: The Rise and Fall of the Field Family

Archaeological excavations at the White Hill Mansion in Fieldsboro, Burlington County, New Jersey, revealed material evidence of identity construction and maintenance among the Delaware Valley’s rural elite during the late colonial and early Republic periods. This article focuses on the lives and experiences of the Field family at White Hill and, in particular, three of the property’s owners: Robert Field II, a successful merchant; his wife Mary Peale Field; and their son Robert Field III. The Fields were significant participants in the distinctive Quaker-influenced regional culture of the Delaware Valley, at times successfully and at times less so. Through agency theory, social constructs of gentility, documentary research, and both above- and below-ground archaeological evidence, the ways in which the Fields and their relatives employed material culture to create and maintain social, economic, and political identities from the 1750s to the 1810s are examined. The evidence reveals that individual family members used various methods and cultural behaviors to cultivate and sustain desired identities that occasionally had unintended and destructive consequences.

From haciendas to rural elites: Agriculture and economic development in the historiography of rural Mexico

A historiographical overview is presented in this work, in relation to two key issues in Mexican rural history: the hacienda and the social actors that moved the agricultural sector, particularly the rural elites. This analysis begins with the classic works of François Chevalier and Charles Gibson, then provides an overview of different approaches (functionalist, sectorial, regional, neo-institutional, business and environmental) to analysing the hacienda. The study focuses on the historiography of rural (or agrarian) elites and its remarkable presence in recent academic works. The authors contend that Mexican agrarian historiography has overflowed its regional geographic scope to become a reference for Latin American historical studies. The development of agrarian studies in Mexico, especially in relation to the hacienda system, stems from the interest in explaining the agrarian nature of the Revolution of 1910. Diverse and even contradictory interpretations have been proposed, which in perspective have allowed huge historiographical advances.

Child Labour, Parental Neglect, School Boards, and Teacher Quality: School Inspector Reports on the Supply and Demand of Schooling in Mid-nineteenth-century Sweden

By examining the state school inspector reports of 1861–1863, which provide rich insights into the local conditions of schooling in Sweden, this article sheds further light on the wide range of factors that weakened school enrolment and attendance in nineteenth-century Sweden. In terms of parental demand, these included child labour on farms, at manors, and in industries; the transformation of the servant system among rural households; and religious practices, such as the confirmation and the beliefs of Protestant sectarian groups. On the supply side, factors that school inspectors reported included the inability of Swedish teacher seminars to examine enough teachers and the problematic behaviour of local school boards. As a result, this article provides additional input into the debate in educational history regarding the role of the state, religion, rural elites, and parents in the rise of mass schooling, while simultaneously providing further qualitative evidence to a quantitatively oriented research field in economic history on the determinants of schooling.

Child Labour, Parental Neglect, School Boards, and Teacher Quality: School Inspector Reports on the Supply and Demand of Schooling in Mid-nineteenth-century Sweden

By examining the state school inspector reports of 1861–1863, which provide rich insights into the local conditions of schooling in Sweden, this article sheds further light on the wide range of factors that weakened school enrolment and attendance in nineteenth-century Sweden. In terms of parental demand, these included child labour on farms, at manors, and in industries; the transformation of the servant system among rural households; and religious practices, such as the confirmation and the beliefs of Protestant sectarian groups. On the supply side, factors that school inspectors reported included the inability of Swedish teacher seminars to examine enough teachers and the problematic behaviour of local school boards. As a result, this article provides additional input into the debate in educational history regarding the role of the state, religion, rural elites, and parents in the rise of mass schooling, while simultaneously providing further qualitative evidence to a quantitatively oriented research field in economic history on the determinants of schooling.

Colombia’s oil palm development in times of war and ‘peace’: Myths, enablers and the disparate realities of land control

Between 1993 and 2015 the land planted to oil palm in Colombia increased fourfold, from 119,000ha to 484,000ha. This rapid growth coincided with a period of extreme armed conflict and displacement, with inequality in land distribution reaching the highest levels in Latin America (Oxfam, 2017). These occurrences spurred this inquiry into conditions on the ground in the palm growing zones and the political and economic forces promoting the crop. The theoretical underpinnings are derived from the literature on land grabbing, land control, land concentration and exclusion. Oil palm has been favoured by rural elites, conservative governments and right-wing paramilitaries in an attempted ‘modernising’ of the countryside through agro-industry. Neo-liberal ideas emphasising capital accumulation through the ‘market’ have minimised land reform efforts and impeded post-conflict land restitution. The paper is organised in three main parts. Part 1 introduces the crop and its importance, linked to oil palm's culture of continuous expansion. Relevant theoretical concepts are discussed, together with the background to land and violence in Colombia. Part 2 begins the more detailed analysis of the palm oil industry. A descriptive survey of historical beginnings, modern data availability and distribution of holdings is followed by a more nuanced analysis of industry-induced ‘myths’ and political ‘enablers’ through the Uribe years (2002–10) and the Santos era (2010–2018). In Part 3 the evidence for ‘stolen land’ is examined in representative oil palm locations. The findings are summarised in the conclusion. • Colombia's oil palm area quadrupled in a period of armed conflict and displacement. • The increase was officially attributed to state assistance and new lands from ‘alliances’. • Peasant displacement and ‘cleaning’ of titles consolidated land control. • Despite patchy evidence, case studies have supported findings of ‘stolen land’. • The rural lowlands are modernising but land access remains highly inequitable.

Food-based indicators are related to iron and iodine deficiencies of mother-toddler dyads during the lean season in northern Ghana.

Fe and iodine deficiencies are among the common forms of nutritional deficiencies globally and cause detrimental effects on mother and child. In developing countries, strategies to address these problems rarely use preventative dietary approaches. This cross-sectional study aims to ascertain whether dietary diversity score (DDS) and dietary patterns (DP) can predict the associated risk (AR) of Fe and iodine deficiencies in mother-toddler dyads during the dry/lean season in northern Ghana. Data were collected from women (15-49 years; n 118) and their toddlers (6-23 months, n 121). Dyads DDS and DP were calculated from their food intake recall. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to examine whether DDS, DP and socio-demographic factors predict higher odds of Fe and iodine deficiencies in dyads. DDS and DP predicted Fe and iodine deficiencies AR. Compared with DDS ≥4, women with DDS <4 have higher odds of Fe deficiency (ID) (adjusted OR (AOR) 1·82, 95 % CI 1·03, 3·21) and iodine deficiency (AOR 9·73, 95 % CI 3·19, 29·67). Two DP emerged in principal component analyses, 'rural elites diet' predicted ID risk in mothers (AOR 8·65, 95 % CI 1·76, 42·39), while 'indigenous diet' predicted iodine deficiency risk (AOR 11·41, 95 % CI 1·36, 95·97) in mothers only. The AR of Fe and iodine deficiencies in vulnerable populations may be predicted by diet-based measures in northern Ghana. We recommend further research into DDS and DP to predict Fe and iodine status of mother-toddler dyads in Ghana.

The Problem of African Girlhood: Raising the Age of Consent in the Cape of Good Hope, 1893–1905

In 1893, legislation in the Cape Colony raised the age of consent to sexual intercourse from twelve to fourteen. Only twelve years later, however, did colonial administrators extend the law to the predominantly African districts in the eastern region of the colony. A reconstruction of the political debates surrounding the law, and its eventual extension, illuminates the relationship between understandings of childhood and race in the Cape. By the late 19th century, the comparison of Africans to children had become the governing metaphor for the “native question”; but this metaphor contained fundamental ambiguities. Debates over the age of consent forced Cape politicians to confront the racial and chronological boundaries of childhood innocence, and thus to articulate more precise theories of racial difference itself. Rural elites upheld a vision of hierarchy calibrated by wealth and social knowledge as well as race. Reformers sought to protect the innocence of white girls, in part to defend against racial degeneration, but disagreed over the inclusion of black girls. Meanwhile, even liberal social purity advocates hesitated to extend the law to the eastern districts, where “native law and custom” seemed not only to offer more protection but also to undermine claims of European superiority.

Rural elite and rural development

Rural elite and rural development

Class-Switching: Migrants' Multiple Class Identities in Rural and Urban Namibia

To better understand migrants’ adjustments to varying class structures at multiple places, the linguistic concept of code-switching is translated into the novel concept of class-switching. I suggest that class positions, like language repertoires, can be switched. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Namibia, this article examines middle-class urbanites’ class-switching. Since independence, a new black middle class has emerged in Namibia, one that is still strongly connected to its rural homelands. Members of this middle class switch into rural elite structures when visiting their home villages; however, most of the time, they live urban middle-class lives. Focusing on this emerging middle class, I trace the flexibility of class identities through migrants’ switching of class and place.

Appropriations, conflicts and subversions: the social construction of the Brazilian Forest Code

ABSTRACT It is often said that Brazil has some of the most advanced forest laws in the world, but this strong legislation has been rarely translated into effective environmental governance. To understand the challenges of implementing environmental policies in Brazil and elsewhere, this study conceptualizes the Forest Code as a socially constructed technology, the effects of which emerge from its specific uses. We find that, in contrast to the prevailing view of this law as having no effects in practice, it produced multiple and contradictory impacts due to its appropriation by different social groups. For the technocrats, the law was a partial success as it represented progress towards science-based territorial planning. For the Rural elite the Forest Code was used as way to block access of poor settlers to fertile public areas to preserve future elite agricultural expansion. Finally, settlers viewed the Code as a way to obtain official clearing authorizations used to substantiate future titling claims. From this examination, the article argues that the prevailing economic and legalist perspectives on the effectiveness of environmental policies need to be complemented by sociological perspectives in order to account for the non-deterministic character of scientific perspectives, laws and the social dynamics behind the multiple appropriations of state apparatuses. By understanding how laws, as technologies, are interpreted and appropriated by different social actors we will be able to contribute by proposing legal apparatuses that are more appropriate for the local context in which they are supposed to function.

The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia*

AbstractThis article explores the foundations of religious influence in politics and society. We show that an important Islamic institution fostered the entrenchment of Islamism at a critical juncture in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. In the early 1960s, rural elites transferred large amounts of land into waqf—inalienable charitable trusts in Islamic law—to avoid expropriation by the state. Regions facing a greater threat of expropriation exhibit more prevalent waqf land and Islamic institutions endowed as such, including mosques and religious schools. These endowments provided conservative forces with the capital needed to promote Islamist ideology and mobilize against the secular state. We identify lasting effects of the transfers on the size of the religious sector, electoral support for Islamist parties, and the adoption of local sharia laws. These effects are shaped by greater demand for religion in government but not by greater piety among the electorate. Waqf assets also impose costs on the local economy, particularly in agriculture, where these endowments are associated with lower productivity. Overall, our findings shed new light on the origins and consequences of Islamism.

The House of Hermogenes of Kagrai: The Rural Elites and the Micro-Economy in Upper Melas Valley

Yazar, Karadag Magarasi’nin girisi uzerinde duran ve kisa sure once yayimlanan bir yazit temelinde Kagrai’in en seckin ailesini irdelemekte; ayrica yayimli dort yazit icin addenda et corrigenda vermektedir. Karadag yaziti magaranin icinde bir tur ekonomik faaliyetin soz konusu oldugunu dusundurmektedir. Magaranin sahipleri olan Rhodon III ile oglu Musaios IV Kagrai’in Selge’den buraya goc ettikten sonra yerlesimin siyasi ve ekonomik yasaminda en az dort kusak boyunca baskin olan en seckin ailesine mensuptular. Aile uyeleri ayrica cesitli imar faaliyetleriyle yerlesimin kucuk bir koy kimliginden bagimsiz bir demos statusune yukselmesine de katkida bulunmuslardir. Bu ailenin uyeleri tarafindan insa ettirilen Emerye Kulesi’nin daha once yayimlanmis insa yaziti ailenin zenginliginin kesinlikle buyuk toprak sahipliginden ve tarimsal uretimden kaynaklandigini gostermektedir. Kasai kentinin teritoryumunda yer alan Gedefi Ini’ndeki iki ayri yazit, ailenin bazi uyelerinin heykel dikmek suretiyle kendilerini olumsuzlestirdiklerini belgelemektedir. Bunlardan biri Rhodon III tarafindan babasi Musaios II icin dikilmistir. Bu veri bir yandan Kagraili ailenin etkinlik sahasinin Kasai’a kadar uzandigini; ote yandan da «kendini tasvir»in, memleketlerinden bu kadar uzakta dahi, aile uyeleri icin tasidigi onemi ortaya koymaktadir. Epigrafik belgeler bolgedeki mikro-kentlerin esraf tabakasinin sayica son derece sinirli oldugunu belgelemektedir.

Rights in the Time of Populism: Land and Institutional Change Amid the Reemergence of Right-Wing Authoritarianism in Colombia

In Colombia, right-wing leadership returned to power after winning the presidential elections in 2018 in a campaign in which they opposed the previous government, primarily because of the negotiations and peacemaking with the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo ‘Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia—People’s Army’), Colombia’s largest guerrilla organization. Globally, there is a vibrant academic debate about how to characterize the current rise of right-wing populism or authoritarianism, but more profound insights from each country’s situation and its political economy implications are needed. The victory in Colombia was due to numerous factors, including the support from some rural elites who have historically obstructed the enforcement of redistributive land policies. However, the populist aspirations of the right-wing government have been persistently frustrated not only by social unrest and political mobilization but also because of the enforcement of institutions previously incorporated into the country’s political scenario. Specifically, in terms of agrarian political economy, two sets of human rights-oriented institutional changes are relevant regarding this matter: (a) the Land Restitution Law enacted in 2011 and (b) the Comprehensive Rural Reform contained in the Agrarian Chapter of the Peace Agreement between the national government and the FARC-EP in 2016. The purpose of this paper is to ground the ongoing theoretical and political debate about the rise of different forms of populism and right-wing authoritarianism in the current Colombian political context, and its implications on the countryside. The analytical contribution of this paper is twofold: On the one hand, I propose an alternative for explaining the nature of the current political regime in Colombia as right-wing authoritarianism; on the other hand, I analyze some features of such regimes in terms of its disputes with the enforcement of human rights-oriented institutions, that are in force as the result of political processes triggered by peasants’ mobilization.