Primitive Accumulation, New Enclosures, and Global Land Grabs: A Theoretical Intervention

Abstract

Recent critical analyses of global land grabs have variously invoked global capitalism and neocolonialism to account for this trend. One line of inquiry approaches land grabs as instances of “primitive accumulation of capital” whereby lands in the Global South are “enclosed” and brought within the ambit of global capitalism. Another perspective invokes the history of Anglo‐American colonialism for critiquing the developmentalist discourse that depicts Africa as the “last frontier” to be tamed by the techno‐industrial civilization of the North. This essay integrates these two perspectives by elaborating capitalism as an irreducibly colonial formation with global inceptions. I begin with a discussion of “primitive accumulation” and, counter to many, question the suitability of “enclosure” for interpreting land grabs. The second section delves into the theoretical origins of primitive accumulation, proposing to situate it in a global and colonial genealogy of capitalism. A final section charts the theoretical and historical contours of this global genealogy and arrives at a more capacious reconceptualization of primitive accumulation. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of contemporary land grabs for in situ displacement, the fungibility of land, and new enclosures in the contemporary reconfiguration of global value chains.

Situating global finance in the Land Rush Debate: A critical review

“…Much of this work is rooted in the tradition of a more structuralist political economy, taking inspiration from intellectual traditions such as international political economy (Clapp, 2011), food regime theory (McMichael, 2012), world-systems theory (Ince, 2013), and historical-geographical materialism (Harvey, 2006(Harvey, [1982). This work has dissected the global land rush along a variety of dimensions, including its drivers, historicity, political economy, regional trajectories, governance, local impacts, and the forms of resistance levelled against it.…”

Scattered Limbs: Capitalists, Kin, and Primitive Accumulation in Brazil's Cacao Lands, 1950s–1970s

“…British soldiers enforced this mass of evictions … One old woman was burnt to death in the flames of the hut she refused to leave” (Marx 1976:891). What Marx describes is an example of “real” subsumption, distinguished from “formal” subsumption (Marx :1021; see also Ince :118–119). In real subsumption, capital represses, destroys, and subordinates “nonaccumulative logics of social reproduction” (Ince :106), whereas through formal subsumption, capital assimilates, restructures, and incorporates “pre‐existing cultural and social achievements” (Harvey :146).…”

“…What Marx describes is an example of “real” subsumption, distinguished from “formal” subsumption (Marx :1021; see also Ince :118–119). In real subsumption, capital represses, destroys, and subordinates “nonaccumulative logics of social reproduction” (Ince :106), whereas through formal subsumption, capital assimilates, restructures, and incorporates “pre‐existing cultural and social achievements” (Harvey :146). In the processes, “non‐capitalist labor regimes” and forms of accumulation “are rendered endogenous to capitalism,” becoming “part of the internal heterogeneity or striation of capitalism” (Ince :118).…”

“…Hall takes issue, however, with accounts of primitive accumulation that conceive of “Capital” as an “anthropomorphized and ‘depersonalized’ social relation” (2012:1196), or those that idealize distinctions between market and moral economies (2012:1200). Indeed, in some abstract theoretical expositions, local social structures are conceived as only offering resistance with which “capital has to contend” (Ince :119–120), or as mere “moments” in “capital's circulation and realization” (Ince :116–117). Negri, for example, writes that “in the period of primitive accumulation, when capital enveloped and constricted pre‐existent labor forms to its own valorization, it was capital which posed the form of cooperation” (Negri :165).…”

“Medium-Scale” Forestland Grabbing in the Southwestern Highlands of Ethiopia: Impacts on Local Livelihoods and Forest Conservation

“…However, there is growing understanding that not all appropriations lead to the physical relocation of former users; rather, some appropriations create in situ displacement that encompasses a situation whereby people remain in place but face new restrictions on using the resources they formerly accessed [13,50]. Studies from Africa and Asia have documented, albeit implicitly, in situ displacements related to contemporary land appropriations.…”