This book investigates why collectivised farming failed in south Vietnam after 1975. Despite the strong will of the new regime to implement collectivisation, the effort was uneven, misapplied and subverted. After only 10 years of trying, the regime annulled the policy. Focusing on two case studies—Quảng Nam province in the Central Coast region and An Giang province in the Mekong Delta—and based on extensive evidence, this study argues that the reasons for variations in implementation and the failure and reversal of the policy were twofold: regional differences and local politics.

An analysis of gender and property throughout South Asia which argues that the most important economic factor affecting women is the gender gap in command over property.

Questions of who can access land and who is excluded from it underlie many recent social and political conflicts in Southeast Asia. Powers of Exclusion examines the key processes through which shifts in land relations are taking place, notably state land allocation and provision of property rights, the dramatic expansion of areas zoned for conservation, booms in the production of export-oriented crops, the conversion of farmland to post-agrarian uses, “intimate” exclusions involving kin and co-villagers, and mobilizations around land framed in terms of identity and belonging. In case studies drawn from seven countries, the authors find that four “powers of exclusion”—regulation, the market, force and legitimation—have combined to shape land relations in new and often surprising ways. Land debates are often presented as a conflict between market-oriented land use with full private property rights on the one side, and equitable access, production for subsistence, and respect for custom on the other. The authors step back from these debates to point out that any productive use of land requires the exclusion of some potential users, and that most projects for transforming land relations are thus accompanied by painful dilemmas. Rather than counterposing “exclusion” to “inclusion,” the book argues that attention must be paid to who is excluded, how, why, and with what consequences. Powers of Exclusion is a path-breaking book that draws on insights from multiple disciplines to map out the new contours of struggles for land in Southeast Asia. The volume provides a framework for analyzing the dilemmas of land relations across the Global South and beyond.

Land Reform Revisited engages with contemporary debates on land reform and agrarian transformation in South Africa. The volume offers insights into post-apartheid transformation dynamics through the lens of agency and state making. The chapters written by emerging scholars are based on extensive qualitative research and their analysis highlights the ways in which people negotiate and contest land reform realities and politics. By focusing on the diverse meanings of land and competing interpretations of what constitutes success and failure in land reform Brandt and Mkodzongi insist on looking beyond the productivity discourses guiding research and policy making in the field towards an informed view from below. Contributors are: Kezia Batisai, Femke Brandt, Sarah Bruchhausen, Nerhene Davis, Elene Cloete, Tariro Kamuti, Tarminder Kaur, Grasian Mkodzongi, Camalita Naicker, Fani Ncapayi, Mnqobi Ngubane, and Chizuko Sato.

Recent transformations in Sri Lanka's agrarian structures have been both complex and uneven. While the overall direction of change has been towards a more capitalist form of organization, the process of transformation has been heterogeneous, contradictory, and, furthermore, varied widely from region to region. This volume explores both the range and the complexity of these processes by bringing together a set of ethnographic studies conducted in six of Sri Lanka's nine provinces. All thirteen essays trace the changes that have occurred in the four decades since independence. Contributors combine enthnographic with historical research and place their respective analysis of agrarian change within local cultural contexts. They treat agrarian change as a dynamic social process and convey a sense of how that change is experienced by the villagers. A number of common themes run through the collection, including the interplay between local initiatives and state policies; the complex ways in which capitalist schemes of production interact with existing agrarian institutions; and the refashioning of local identities as village life is incorporated into ever-widening circuits of economic, political, and cultural relations. With its new research data and unique theoretical perspectives, this volume will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, development economists, social and economic historians, agricultural economists, and those studying rural development and agrarian change in South Asia. "Book as a whole does go beyond accounting for economic changes, and provides multiple and integrated approaches to studying agrarian transformation elsewhere." --Contributions to Indian Sociology "A useful book, providing a wealth of detailed ethnographic evidence concerning the influence of capitalist relations of production on smallholder agriculture in Sri Lanka. It concludes with a helpful glossary giving translations and definitions of local terminology." --Third World Quarterly "The book is an exploration of the process of development and its impact on the lives of people. It is a very useful addition to the literature on Sri Lankan development studies." --Business Standard "What's inside the covers will interest scholars beyond the usual robe, rice, and plough set; this book amply demonstrates why no analysis of agrarian change can ignore the cultural and symbolic dimensions of agrarian activity." --Journal of Asian Studies

Despite 250 years of land reform all over the World, important land inequalities remain, especially in Latin America and Southern Africa.While in these countries, there is near consensus on the need for redistribution, much controversy persists around how to redistribute land peacefully and legally, often blocking progress on implementation.This book focuses on the "how" of land redistribution in order to forge greater consensus among land reform practitioners and enable them to make better choices on the mechanisms of land reform. Reviews and case studies describe and analyze the al.