Mapping historical and contemporary agrarian transformations and capitalist infiltration in a complex upland environment: A case from eastern Nepal

Abstract

The relationship that mountain communities have with global capitalism are complex, being mediated by a diverse topography and ecology, both of which provide opportunities for capital accumulation, while also isolating older, "pre-capitalist" modes of production. This paper takes a case study valley from Nepal's eastern hills, tracing over two centuries of agrarian change and evolving interactions between "adivasi" and "semi-feudal" economic formations with capitalism. In recent years, the expansion of markets, rising demand for cash, and climate stress have solidified migrant labour as a core component of livelihoods, and the primary mechanism of surplus appropriation from the hill peasantry. Through a focus on three altitudinal zones, however, it is demonstrated how the trajectory of this transformation, including the interactions with persisting pre-capitalist formations, is mediated by both politicaleconomic processes and the local agro-ecological context.

Secondary Forests and Agrarian Transitions: Insights from Nepal and Peru

“…The view that increased income alleviates poverty, reflected in so-called equity interventions promoted by external programmes such as REDD, may in fact encourage poor households to engage in the market through risky small livestock enterprises to their detriment (Nightingale 2017 ; Khatri et al 2018 ). Degree of social differentiation, commodification, and their social consequences are village specific and reflect both agroecology and specific forest types as well as market penetration (Sugden et al 2017 ).…”

“…Such analysis would focus on the changes in forest cover and quality but ignore the wider dynamics of forest and agrarian change and their contingent and conjunctural circumstances, including land use where an agricultural frontier is either fixed or open and the competition for land with shrinking farm sizes (and landlessness) or by expansionist capitalist agriculture. It would also not address the contrast between an agrarian economy that has largely failed to make a transition to capitalist agriculture and outmigration and remittances have become a key component of the rural economy (Sugden et al 2017 ) and the situation of migrants attracted by land availability in the Peruvian Amazon leading to crop booms. Nepal has seen the integration of agricultural and forest land leading to a retreat of the cultivation margins and a re-treeing of the agrarian landscape outside the forest boundary areas.…”

IWMI Gender and Inclusion Strategy 2020-2023: new landscapes of water equality and inclusion

“…A systemic body of research on these issues in the EGP has informed the setting up of genderinclusive agricultural collectives (Sugden 2009(Sugden , 2013Sugden et al 2017;Bunting et al 2016;Leder et al 2019) and led to the development of the Migration, Agriculture and Resilience: Initiative for Sustainability (MARIS) network, which links water management to migration and rural transformations.…”

Labour Migration, Capitalist Accumulation, and Feudal Reproduction: A Historical Analysis from the Eastern Gangetic Plains

“…It is, nevertheless, likely that neoliberal policies adopted by both states have reinforced rather than undermined both landed and comprador capitalist interests. Economic restructuring in both countries has allowed the domestic comprador bourgeoisie to intensify their profits through the expansion of markets for imported goods, further undermining local production while increasing the expenditure of the poor (see also Sugden et al ). This in turn sustains a continued flow of low‐wage migrant labour to the capitalist sector.…”

“…This migration does nevertheless serve these elite interests within Nepal. It represents a safety valve in the context of a stagnant industrial sector and persistent concentration of land (Blaikie et al ), while remittances themselves serve to bolster the import‐based comprador economy (Sugden et al ). There is also the lucrative 'manpower' sector which has strong political protection, whereby middlemen generate significant profit from fees charged to migrants (Taylor‐Nicholson et al ); another form of surplus appropriation worthy of further study in the future.…”