This thesis analyses the scope for the “self-help” model of rural development to succeed in its broadly stated aims of enabling rural women to advance their social status and enhance their own and/or their family’s livelihoods. The thesis is organised around two key sites of investigation. The first questions the potential for “self-help” to operate within existing social relations - expressed in access to land, other assets and resources (including credit), and in different forms, conditions, and relations of labour. The second questions its potential to intervene in, and potentially overturn, these relations. These questions are embedded in a wider analysis of the ways in which individual and collective attempts to advance living conditions (or at least defend them from deterioration) are defined by historically (re)produced social relations. Analysis is centred on the South Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, where the “self-help” policy approach, now widely replicated as a model for central and federal interventions, is most established. This is a mixed-methods study. It draws on statistical analysis of large-scale secondary survey data, analysis of primary fieldwork, and of government policy documents and other relevant documentation. The thesis engages directly with the philosophical issues this raises, to develop a foundation for the logically consistent assimilation of statistical and “qualitative” methods into mixed methods research. Fieldwork centred on two villages in southern Chittoor district and relied primarily on repeated in-depth interviews with members of four self help groups and, where applicable, their husbands (30 respondents in total). Local officials and programme staff and bank managers were also interviewed. In addition, multi-level logit regression analysis was conducted with two large-scale, complex secondary data sets; the All India National Survey Sample (round 61; schedule 10; 2004/05) and the Young Lives Project Survey (round two; 2005/2006). An innovative weighting procedure was applied to adjust for the latter’s non-random sampling procedure.The findings demonstrate the tensions invoked by state policy emphasising agential action in the absence of due regard for the structural relations within which actions not only take place, but in which the conditions for their possibility and articulation are generated, institutionalised, and reproduced. This situation is exacerbated by unfolding ecological crisis in the fieldwork village sites, problematising the land-based solutions traditionally advocated by the Indian Left. The thesis concludes that Andhra’s self-help programmes can perform a non-trivial ameliorative role in the short-term, but this is undermined by a wider tendency to reproduce and potentially exacerbate ongoing processes of rural differentiation.

Submitted by Adriana Martinez (amartinez@unoeste.br) on 2017-06-05T20:56:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Geisiane.pdf: 2574154 bytes, checksum: b5d54f173b6b19db6d91c3b1760407f4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-05T20:56:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Geisiane.pdf: 2574154 bytes, checksum: b5d54f173b6b19db6d91c3b1760407f4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-31 / The goal of this research is to understand how and if the Pé de Galinha School is part of the regional development of Pontal do Paranapanema. A qualitative and qualitative research were essential fieldwork to collect the necessary information, as well as the historical redemption through literature aiming to know how has been occupied the region and its evolutionary stages. Within these steps if emphasizes the development of the agrarian question which relate to the capital and the peasantry. Therefore, the capital advance boosted the class struggle for dominance and control of the territory aimed at the use of natural resources, among which the land is the most important. In the center of the class struggle is the peasantry as a historical force always present in the history of this region, within which built recreation strategies as a way to develop within capitalism without, however, be part of it. Reflections on the schools of the peasantry and regional development will always have these conceptual boundaries before which rise some questions aimed at understanding the importance and the role of the peasantry schools. From these discussions we sought to broaden the understanding of the concepts of teaching and school model. As geographical boundaries of the study area used the Hydric Resources Management Unit (HRMU) in number 22. To analyze the reality of education offered to the regional peasantry were carried out field work in the State School Fazenda São Bento - Foot School Chicken. From this analysis it was found that the current model of education contributes to the development and expansion of the capital to form citizens only for the labor market. The developed educational structure is hegemonic and city side, where the peasantry has no autonomy to intervene and ensure an education that gives you complete emancipation. / O objetivo dessa pesquisa consiste em compreender como e se a Escola do Pé de Galinha faz parte do desenvolvimento regional do Pontal do Paranapanema. Como pesquisa qualitativa foi imprescindível o trabalho de campo para recolher as informações necessárias, como também o resgate histórico através de pesquisa bibliográfica visando conhecer de que forma vem sendo ocupada a região e suas etapas evolutivas. Dentro dessas etapas se ressalta o desenvolvimento da questão agrária onde se relacionam o capital e o campesinato. Por conseguinte, o avanço do capital impulsionou a luta de classes para o domínio e o controle do território visando à utilização dos recursos naturais, dentre os quais a terra é o mais importante. No centro da luta de classes encontra-se o campesinato como força histórica sempre presente na história dessa região, no interior da qual construiu estratégias de recriação como forma de se desenvolver dentro do capitalismo sem, contudo, fazer parte dele. As reflexões sobre a escola do campesinato e o desenvolvimento regional terão sempre esses contornos conceituais diante dos quais se levantam alguns questionamentos visando compreender a importância e a função da escola do campesinato. A partir dessas discussões buscou-se ampliar a compreensão sobre as concepções do modelo de ensino e de escola. Como delimitação geográfica da região estudada utilizou-se a Unidade de Gerenciamento de Recursos Hídricos (UGRHI) de número 22. Para analisar a realidade da educação oferecida ao campesinato regional, foram realizados trabalhos de campo na Escola Estadual Fazenda São Bento – Escola do Pé de Galinha. Dessa análise constatou-se que o atual modelo de ensino contribui para o desenvolvimento e a expansão do capital ao formar cidadãos apenas para o mercado de trabalho. A estrutura educacional desenvolvida é hegemônica e de vertente citadina, onde o campesinato não tem autonomia para intervir e garantir uma educação que lhe proporcione total emancipação.

Objetiva-se, nesse estudo, analisar os novos processos de modernização que se impõem nos cerrados piauienses produzidos pela presença da agricultura moderna. Tal movimento teve inicio nos anos 1970 com os primeiros projetos agropecuários e de reflorestamentos instalados através de incentivos fiscais e financeiros públicos, mais se consolida somente em meados dos anos 1990 com a ampliação do deslocamento de migrantes sulistas e de empresas do agronegócio para aquela área. Resultou dessa ocupação a apropriação privada de amplas parcelas de terras devolutas dos platôs planos onde havia uso comunitário pela população local, as quais são transformadas em mercadorias valorizadas no mercado imobiliário. As manifestações de mudanças aparecem tanto sobre o espaço agrícola que se altera diante da incorporação dos aparatos da técnica e da ciência tornando-se homogêneos, e sobre o espaço da cidade que ganha novas formas e funcionalidades. Tanto o rural quanto o urbano do sul do Estado do Piauí revelam os processos contraditórios da recente modernização, pois se transformam, simultaneamente, em espaços de produção de riqueza e de manifestação de crises. Ao mesmo tempo em que se anunciam formas inovadoras que aceleram o ritmo de produção e de circulação das mercadorias sob a liderança de empresas globais, evidencia-se a expropriação de levas de camponeses cujas únicas possibilidades disponíveis passam a ser a de venderem sua força de trabalho nas lavouras modernas de grãos em condições de extrema precarização, ou a de se instalarem nas periferias miseráveis das cidades do agronegócio. Acrescenta-se, ainda, como elemento da crise o agravamento das condições de degradação dos ambientes naturais por conta do avanço acelerado das lavouras modernas nos domínios dos gerais, afetando os ecossistemas locais. Busca-se, nesse sentido, apontar que a atual modernização dos cerrados piauienses se faz produzindo descompassos sócio-espaciais. Ela se configura, portanto, como um processo essencialmente excludente. / This study analyzes the new modernization processes raised at the cerrados in Piauí due to modern agriculture. This movement started in the early 1970´s together with the first cattle breeding and reforesting projects developed through state financial and fiscal incentives. These projects only started to consolidate around 1990´s as the displacement of people and agricultural business firms from the south of Brazil (?sulistas?) to Piauí increased. The result of this land occupation was the appropriation of vast plain plateaus escheated lands of communitarian use that turned to be commodities. These lands were valorized by housing market. Signs of these changes appeared both on the agricultural space, transformed by means of applying scientific and technological objects, which turned the space homogeneous, and the city space, that gained new shape and functionalities. Piaui´s southern urban and rural areas reveal contradictory process of this recent modernization, transformed simultaneously into spaces where richness and crisis manifestations are both produced. While innovation accelerating the production rhythm and the circulation of goods under global companies´ leadership is announced, the expropriation of peasants groups stands out. Now their possibilities only depend on selling their task force in the new corporate farming business in extremely hard working conditions or installing themselves at the poor outskirts of this agricultural business related cities. Furthermore, natural environment?s worsening conditions are a result of modern agricultural technology at those gerais. These conditions affect local ecosystems and add up another element to the crisis. In this way we intend to point out that the modernization of the cerrados piauienses is generating a socio-spatial imbalance, which configures itself as an essentially excluding process.

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The farm novels of southern Africa can be considered microcosms of gender stereotypes and racial attitudes. Reading these novels using post-colonial, Marxist, and feminist theory is especially useful in thinking about how these novels reflect female writers’ perspectives about the success of the imperialism in Africa and the lasting effects of colonialism on gender and race relations. In addition, these novels provide interesting insight into colonialism, allowing each author to comment on the effect of imperialism on both the colonized and those who take up the colonial project. This dissertation examines novels by three female African writers: The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner, The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing, and When Rain Clouds Gather by Bessie Head. Written at different stages of colonial power, each novel represents agrarian life in southern African colonies that share similar cultural, historical, colonial, and racial attitudes. These novels can be interpreted as building on, challenging, and “writing back” to the concept of the plaasroman, a genre central to the South African colonial experience. In addition to discussing how these novels undermine traditional forms of pastoral literature in order to comment explicitly on those forms’ failure to account for the farm experience in southern Africa, this dissertation applies postcolonial, Marxist, and ecofeminist criticism to delve into issues of postcolonial identity, racism, and the role of the farm as both a microcosm and a catalyst for change.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In recent years, donors, policy makers, and non-governmental organisations working on land and agricultural issues have latched onto the catch phrase ‘inclusive business models’ as an alternative to large-scale land acquisitions. Development actors promote these inclusive models, such as contract farming or outgrowing schemes, to mitigate the often significant and adverse impacts of land grabs on rural people while still supporting foreign direct investments, particularly in agriculture in developing countries. The need to increase investments in agriculture in developing countries is clear, however, it is important to assess how such investments are implemented and who benefits from them and who loses.

PhD - Political Studies / In this thesis, the following methods were used to assess the South African Land Reform Programme; historically important documents, policy papers, library research, qualitative interviews and a comparative analysis, which included a wide range of African, Asian and Latin American countries. The aim of the thesis was twofold. First, to assess whether an essentially market-based land reform programme might bring about equity and growth. Second, to draw lessons and make recommendations based on an analysis of land reform programmes in other countries, as well as on South African case studies. Emerging issues related to farm size, food security, poverty alleviation, appropriate credit policies, the limitations of market-based reform, the problems relating to bureaucratic reform programmes, the importance of beneficiary participation, the necessity to develop a gender sensitive programme and, finally, the undeniable relationship between violence and land reform. This thesis highlights the link between the omission of gender in policy development and subsequent policy failures. It highlights the relationship between land reform and violence and, it points to the varied nature of rural livelihoods. There is also a focus on how South African land reform policies developed and an analysis of the influence that the various actors, who participated in this process, had on subsequent

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