Experiencing primitive accumulation as alienation: Mangrove forest privatization, enclosures and the everyday adaptation of bodies to capital in ruralSenegal

Abstract

This paper examines primitive accumulation by studying changes in fishermen and mollusc collectors' labour before and after the privatization of 1,800 hectares of mangrove forest in rural Senegal through the creation of a tourism-oriented protected area. Locating this privatization within a broader context of capital's enclosures, the paper shows a process of depeasantization, labour intensification (via the multiplication of petty commodity production activities and proletarianization) and changing socioecological relations. This is a process where enclosures continuously alienate workers by separating them not necessarily from the land, but, more generally, from the conditions of their labour even when these are already commodified. As workers cope with alienation, they encounter it anew, contributing to capital's survival through their search for money and other commodities (i.e., means of production and subsistence). Workers' everyday adaptations to capital, and hence alienation, need to become central in future research on primitive accumulation and agrarian change.

When seed becomes capital: Commercialization of Bt cotton in Pakistan

“…Third, far from being capitalism's prehistory, PA is a continuing activity as practically all processes that Marx outlined are still happening (see case studies in AlShehabi & Suroor, 2016; Ayelazuno, 2011; Hiraldo, 2018; Ojeda, 2012; Perreault, 2012; Prudham, 2007; Shaw, 2017; Zhan, 2019). 1 According to Harvey (2004, p.76), “[accumulation by dispossession] is omnipresent in no matter what historical period.” de Angelis (1999, 2001, 2007) argues that it is disingenuous to treat PA and the capital logic as distinctly separated.…”

Beyond property: Rural politics and land‐use change in the Colombian sugarcane landscape

“…As other researchers have argued for different geographies, constellations, and trajectories of land grabbing (Borras & Franco, ; Hiraldo, ), capital enclosures have used sophisticated mechanisms—beyond land property—to colonize new spheres of nature and social relations. In fact, although the sugarcane landscape has not resulted in a radical change in land property regimes, it has resulted in a violent process of land‐use transformation that has deeply affected the landless peasants, mainly Afro‐descendants, through cumulative damage to their cultural heritage, social organization, traditional economies, and possible futures.…”

Conserving Inequality : Subjugating black labour and hoarding property in South Africa’s private nature reserves

“…Pule finally built his home in Acornhoek but continued to work in Johannesburg. This echoes Hiraldo's (2018) observation that even after initial separation labourers continue to experience alienation as they attempt to secure subsistence in other sectors such as mining. Furthermore, as Pule's case shows, primitive accumulation is nomadic, stalking the labourer from one region and sector to another.…”

“…This history is often marked by evictions from land and dispossession of resources, so much so that Kelly (2011: 683) argues that "we must examine how protected area creation is a particular form of primitive accumulation". This separation of mostly 'indigenous' people from their land is common in contemporary conservation landscapes as well (Büscher, 2009;Hiraldo, 2018). However, instead of just explaining the history of the production of conservation spaces, labour and commodities, this thesis explores contested histories and the qualitative transformations that laid the foundation for private nature reserves including the subjugation of black labour and the transformation of land into private property.…”

“…It encloses "land, bodies, social structures, or ideas" (Kelly, 2011: 685) and is a crucial part of capitalism's expansion (Sassen, 2010). Primitive accumulation thus denotes not only transformations in the production process but also the alienation of labour (De Angelis, 2001;Hiraldo, 2018) and changes in relations of social reproduction along gender, class and racial lines (Federici, 2004;Roberts, 2008). This chapter discusses colonialism's and apartheid's primitive accumulation in conservation, which produces and reproduces alienated racialised labourers.…”