Social reproduction of ‘classes of labour’ in the rural areas of South Africa: contradictions and contestations

Abstract

Marxist agrarian political economy has focused largely on the problematic of accumulation and its politics, but the dynamics of social reproduction in rural contexts remain somewhat undertheorised. These are explored through consideration of empirical evidence from communal areas and land reform farms in South Africa. Key arguments advanced are that social reproduction in such contexts include the reproduction of distinctive forms of marriage, systems of kinship and community membership, as well as of property relations that are not characterised by private ownership. Much social reproduction occurs outside of (direct) market relations, but it is nevertheless deeply conditioned and shaped by the dynamics of the wider capitalist economy, including in relation to wage labour and smallscale agricultural production. As a result, social reproduction in rural areas involves contradictions, tensions and contestations, and these are often at the centre of local forms of politics. The wider significance of these findings is discussed, and it is suggested that similar dynamics may be at work across the Global South.

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

“…19 Sanders and Trump are ideological opposites for some of their core groups-"alt-right" for Trump, socialists for Sanders-but they have common supporters and sympathizers, and the basis of the latter, at least in the beginning, is not their ideological stances, but the immediate, concrete issues addressed, such as factory closures amid corporate migration outside 17 For example, Baud and Rutten (2004); Baviskar (1999); Clapp and Isakson (2018); Edelman (1999); Fairbairn (2014); Hall (2011); Holt-Giménez (2017); Isakson (2014); Li (2007Li ( , 2014; Martinez-Alier (2014); McMichael (2008); Moore (1967); Newell and Wheeler (2006); Patel (2009); Peluso (1992); Peluso and Lund (2011); Ribot and Peluso (2003); Scoones (2015); Scott (1976Scott ( , 1985; Shanin (1972); Tsikata and Yaro (2014); Weis (2007); Wolford (2010). 18 And as some more recent studies point out, such as Bernstein (2018), Bernstein et al (2018); Cousins, Dubb, Hornby, and Mtero (2018); Lerche and Shah (2018); Levien et al (2018); White (2018). 19 For elaboration and insiders' accounts, see Sanders (2016) and Bond and Exley (2016).…”

Naming matters: Inheritance, land, and reproductive labor in rural Tanzania

“…In recent years, economic and ecological crises have prompted a resurgence of work on social reproduction (Bhattacharya 2017; Cielo, Coba, and Vallejo 2016; Cousins et al. 2018; Fraser 2016; Naidu and Ossome 2016).…”

“…In agrarian contexts, the conflict between social reproduction and accumulation manifests in struggles over land and its uses (Cousins et al. 2018; Moyo 1995; Naidu and Ossome 2016). Whereas capitalism tends to render land as a productive resource, social reproduction relies on land in its multiplicity, as a locus for social relations, sacred geographies, and shared histories as well as a place to live and farm (Ferguson 2013; Li 2014).…”

“…While this research is vital, it leaves undertheorized many other forms of labor that fall under the sphere of social reproduction, from ecological management practices to the work of rituals (Cousins et al. 2018, 1080; Salleh 2010).…”

Without the blanket of the land: agrarian change and biopolitics in post–Apartheid South Africa

“…Natural resource collection too made an important and possibly underestimated contribution (Shackleton, Shackleton, and Cousins 2002). But as important was the role of social reproduction and 'distributive labour' (Ferguson 2015;Cousins et al 2017).…”