Land and small farmer resistance in authoritarian Egypt

Abstract

This article examines small farmer resistance in Egypt. It situates contemporary struggles in the context of the uneven success of small farmers' historical resistance to land dispossession and neoliberal reform. Struggles over land are the prime driver of rural conflict and small farmers contest state strategies that reward local elites, land owners, and supporters of the military regime. There may not be a coherent social movement able to resist contemporary patterns of capital accumulation, but there are elements of resistance that edge forward an agenda for a “political conversation” about much‐needed deep social reforms. The internationally‐supported Sisi presidency has used violence to consolidate military power, making open revolt difficult. Nevertheless, small farmers link struggles over access to land with poor state provisioning of water and infrastructure as a means of building resistance.

Progressive politics and populism: Classes of labour and rural–urban political sociology—An introduction to the special issue

“…In doing so, they raise significant issues about the nature of agrarian alliances and agrarian populism (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Engels, this issue; Monjane, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue; Sankey, this issue). Some of the special issue articles also assess the contexts that shape possibilities for, and responses to, mobilization—addressing historical and contemporary state violence, or showing how forms of government are linked to dynamics of accumulation, both nationally and internationally (Bush, this issue; Jakobsen & Nielsen, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; White et al, this issue). Kalb's article in the Special Issue, meanwhile, explores why significant numbers of people belonging to classes of labour support right‐wing populism—a vital political question in the search for a progressive politics, and one of the key mechanisms through which capitalism divides and rules.…”

“…As well as sites of production, struggles of classes of labour, which are oriented against both capital and the state, also take place in sites of social reproduction, around issues such as housing (e.g. Bush, this issue). However, the difficulties involved in building a progressive politics among what is a heterogeneous group in many respects should not be underestimated—a point brought home by Kalb's discussion (this issue) of members of classes of labour that support right‐wing populism.…”

“…As shown below, a number of this special issue's authors argue specifically for Borras's left populist peasant‐led agrarian movements. For agrarian movements to be progressive, they, like Borras, think they should be based among PCP farmers, farmer‐workers, tenant farmers, and the landless, as part of a broader set of movements against capitalism (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Bush, this issue; Monjane, this issue). They also show the contradictions within contemporary cross‐class alliances (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Sankey, this issue).…”

“…Social reproduction is increasingly stretched spatially, and the contributions to this special issue reflect that. Most of the articles point to daily, temporary, and longer‐term movement between the countryside and the city for work, and most outline a progressive politics that is neither rural nor urban, but both simultaneously (Bush, this issue; Engels, this issue; Jakobsen & Nielsen, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue; White et al, this issue).…”

“…Social programmes often play a prominent role in more hegemonic forms of populism, as in the early years of the Erdogan government in Turkey and under Shinawatra in Thailand (Karataşli and Kumral; Pye and Chatuthai), but they can also contribute to legitimation crises when cuts in social spending undermine ‘subaltern’ consent, as Bush (this issue) shows indirectly in relation to Egypt (see also Chacko, 2018).…”