After Development: Surplus Population and the Politics of Entitlement

Li, Tania Murray

doi:10.1111/dech.12344

Cited by 100 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This corresponds in our study to group(s) in the green economy who somehow exist “outside” the relations of production not necessarily as formal workers, who can demand rights or benefits, but often as apolitical participants (alluding to Eric Wolf’s “a people without history”) who can be slotted in as informal casual or semi‐formal labour. In this vein, other critical observers suggest, for example, that development banks often frame the rural peasantry as “idle” surplus labour that must be absorbed informally by plantation systems for the biofuel sector (Li , ). Munck (:751) also instructively highlights the French social theorist Robert Castell’s use of travail précaire (translated as “precarious work”) which more accurately speaks to the current “erosion of traditional work relationships and the [growing] centrality of the wage relationships” associated with a more flexible workforce.…”

Section: Eco‐precarity In the Green Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

NotJustParticipation: The Rise of the Eco‐Precariat in the Green Economy

et al. 2020

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Despite recent attention to "frontier" green economies and the governance of emerging ecosystem services, the specific division of labour in these economies has been little studied. As many such initiatives are in the global South, labour's marginality potentially contributes to the existing precariousness of those who are more often identified as "participants". This article examines the roles and vulnerabilities of these actors: the carbon counters, species identifiers, GIS mappers, tree planters and others operating in the shadows. We draw on current understandings of labour and precarity to examine the geographical contours of an apparent and emerging "eco-precariat": a socio-economically diverse group of labourers that address the volatile demands of an ever-expanding environmental service-based economy. We illustrate our analysis drawing on examples from a Blue Carbon project in Kenya, ecosystem services project in the Philippines, and REDD+ scheme in Cambodia. We use these examples to theorise the nature of labour in these frontier economies and put forward a framework for analysing the eco-precariat. We highlight the need to understand the precarity and marginalisation potentially created by this green division of labour in the provision of new ecosystem products and services. This framework contributes to ongoing analyses of labour as a central part of the green economy discourse and to larger discussions in the geographies of labour literature around the future of work in the global South and beyond.

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Section: Eco‐precarity In the Green Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

NotJustParticipation: The Rise of the Eco‐Precariat in the Green Economy

et al. 2020

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“…These findings, therefore, have potential to offer new insights beyond South Africa in order to deepen our knowledge of the role cash transfers are currently playing. Distribution and distributive politics (with all its current limitations) is a political reality not only in South Africa and warrants greater attention internationally (Murray Li, 2017). A politics of distribution (in which cash transfers play a major part), we contend, will in all likelihood play an even greater role in the future in times of absence of decent waged work for 'surplus' populations (Ferguson & Li, 2018;Murray Li, 2017) across many parts of the world.…”

Section: Discussion and Concluding Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Equally important, those occupying such precarious and ill-defined social locations are both pioneering new modes of livelihood and making new kinds of political demands. It is in this context that distributive practices and distributive politics are acquiring a new centrality … Many of the key political and economic dynamics in the region today, I will suggest, turn on distributional claims, including claims made on the state (Ferguson, 2015, p. 23, 47) While the politics of distribution is gaining more and more interest as an analytical field (Murray Li, 2017), the importance of social grants for livelihoods in South Africa is well established (Du Toit & Neves, 2014;Marais, 2011;Meth, 2004;Neves & Du Toit, 2013;Seekings, 2002;Seekings & Nattrass, 2005). Social grants have also been criticised, for example, that South Africa's social welfare system is simply a tokenistic gesture towards the poor, failing to redress poverty and inequality, while the capitalist system remains intact (Bond, 2014;Khan, 2013;Pons-Vignon & Segatti, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘That Child Support Grant Gives Me Powers’ – Exploring Social and Relational Aspects of Cash Transfers in South Africa in Times of Livelihood Change

Granlund

Hochfeld

2019

The Journal of Development Studies

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This article builds on existing literature on the material effects of cash transfers. It explores people's own perceptions of the role of unconditional cash transfers in building, maintaining, and transforming social relations in a small village in rural South Africa. Much of the literature studying the impacts of cash transfers in the global South relies on quantitative measures. Thus, there is a paucity of micro-level qualitative research on beneficiaries' own perspectives on the social impacts of cash transfers. To this end, we explored whether the Child Support Grant, a small cash transfer given to impoverished caregivers of children, changed individual and intra-household relationships, as well as community solidarity in this village. We argue that South Africa's cash transfers have largely had positive social transformative effects on individuals, in relation to a sense of dignity, autonomy and increased decision-making powers for primary caregivers, usually mothers or grandmothers. Positive effects were also perceived in relation to these households and communities, although some contested effects and limitations were also found. These findings are of interest in the ongoing broader debates around the effects of cash transfers globally as well as regionally in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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“…This kind of remoteness seems to be growing, especially among the ‘surplus’ population of BAM builders left after development (cf. Li ).…”

Section: Regional Preliminariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A right to remoteness? A missing bridge and articulations of indigeneity along an East Siberian railroad

Schweitzer

Povoroznyuk

2019

Soc Anthropol

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The Soviet Union and its successor states have been avid supporters of a modernisation paradigm aimed at ‘overcoming remoteness’ and ‘bringing civilisation’ to the periphery and its ‘backward’ indigenous people. The Baikal–Amur Mainline ( BAM ) railroad, built as a much‐hyped prestige project of late socialism, is a good example of that. The BAM has affected indigenous communities and reconfigured the geographic and social space of East Siberia. Our case study, an Evenki village located fairly close to the BAM , is (in)famous today for its supposed refusal to get connected via a bridge to the nearby railroad town. Some actors portray this disconnection as a sign of backwardness, while others celebrate it as the main reason for native language retention and cultural preservation. Focusing on discourses linking the notions of remoteness and cultural revitalisation, the article argues for conceptualising the story of the missing bridge not as the result of political resistance but rather as an articulation of indigeneity, which foregrounds cultural rights over more contentious political claims. Thus, the article explores constellations of remoteness and indigeneity, posing the question whether there might be a moral right to remoteness to be claimed by those who view spatial distance as a potential resource.

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After Development: Surplus Population and the Politics of Entitlement

Cited by 100 publications

References 44 publications

NotJustParticipation: The Rise of the Eco‐Precariat in the Green Economy

NotJustParticipation: The Rise of the Eco‐Precariat in the Green Economy

‘That Child Support Grant Gives Me Powers’ – Exploring Social and Relational Aspects of Cash Transfers in South Africa in Times of Livelihood Change

A right to remoteness? A missing bridge and articulations of indigeneity along an East Siberian railroad

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