https://thesis.eur.nl/col/5014/ List of Publications en https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15225/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Wabusya, Elca Namaemba</div> This paper explores the outcomes of policy interventions related to Prosopis juliflora and how these outcomes have shaped communities’ perceptions to-wards the tree. It set out to narrate the story of Prosopis in Baringo County, Kenya. An inductive research approach was used drawing its inspiration from the core ideas of political economy and political ecology. Findings indicate that Prosopis was introduced in Kenya’s ASALs as a way of curbing desertification and soil erosion but later, the tree became a problem due to its invasiveness. The invasion of this tree to farmland, homesteads and pasturelands led to loss of communities’ livelihood, human and animal health impacts as well as some perceived environmental problems like flooding. This resulted in communities suing the government demanding for its eradication as well as compensation for their losses. As a way of responding to the problem, the government lifted the ban on charcoal production, which in turn enabled a livelihood activity that has been widely taken up by some but not so much by others. There are indications that the tree is currently being appreciated due to its economic benefits from charcoal production as well as the halted desertification. Currently, a planned power plant that intends to use Prosopis for electricity generation has added a new dilemma to debates over Prosopis and local livelihoods. It can therefore concluded that, while planning of this intervention may not have been perfect in terms of ensuring educating the people on how to manage the tree to avoid or control invasion, the adaptive management approach that was used to minimise the impacts played a big role. The government’s flexibility and willingness to adjust its policy through lifting of the ban on charcoal made a big difference. Further, ensuring continuous monitoring and research on ways of managing the tree through KEFRI and KFS is also playing a key role in helping the affected residents to adapt and benefit from the tree. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15226/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Hallock, Lindsey Sarann</div> This paper seeks to examine the rise of vertical farms, and the ways in which they advance the corporate food regime and encourage urban elite consumption. It will discuss two contemporary ‘localizing’ trends: the call for local food systems and local urban restructuring in the era of neoliberalism. I argue that the intersection of these two trends, spatially and temporally, created market opportunities for capital to appropriate social movement demands for local agricultural production, and encouraged the rise of capitalist forms of local food production (vertical farms). I will first introduce the vertical farm concept and currently operating vertical farms referred to throughout the paper. Then, using a theoretical tool developed by Robbins (2013), I will differentiate these farms as local food projects that reproduce the capitalist industrial system, rather than challenging it. In the third chapter, I discuss the analytical frameworks used in the paper: uneven geographic development and food regime analysis. The next chapter discusses how class struggle produced the calls for local food movements, as a response to inequity in the global corporate food regime. I then detail how devalued built environments and labor surplus, characteristics of cities under “actually existing neoliberalism”, facilitated corporate appropriation of the local foods concept by producing profitable conditions for capitalist urban agriculture, which was hailed as local economic development. In the last chapter, I will discuss how these farms serve to reproduce troubling trends in the corporate food regime, and signify new developments in capital’s ability to standardize the food cultivation process, and to incorporate it into factory like production systems. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15227/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Awuni, Mariam</div> Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an interesting environmental policy in the global South to reduce carbon and support livelihood. Ghana is planning to implement REDD+ with the state as a key implementer. This paper examines how state actors are planning to mediate the competing objectives of land use change for REDD+ and agriculture expansion and to what extent state actors involve the participation of forest fringe communities in this process. To examine the roles of state and non state actors in reconciling REDD+ and agricultural production goals, qualitative case study research was conducted in two REDD+ pilot sites: Aowin Suaman and Wassa Amenfi west, both in western Ghana. Interview results firstly show that state actors are planning to improve upon the existing forest policies by working with forest fringe communities however, the final decision rests with the state officials. Secondly, the knowledge level of local people in the pilot areas about REDD+ is relatively low, especially on marketing carbon, because of the complex nature of REDD+ in valuing carbon for marketing. The state actors are facilitating a contradictory role by encouraging farmers to expand agriculture lands which drives deforestation, at the same time to interplant trees in agriculture farms which encourages reforestation. Agricultural activities are for food to reduce hunger and generate income for the country as well as increasing tree cover in their farms in the same piece of land. In conclusion the paper proposes that, policy makers of forest conservation should pay critical attention to process and work to strengthen the capacity of state and non-state actors when reviewing forest policies for REDD+. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15228/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Mandihlare, Chipo Mildred</div> Whether viewed as “land grabbing”, “large scale land acquisition” or “agriculture investment for development”, this trajectory has seen vast tracks of land being outsourced for non-food projects such as bio-fuel production. Majority of farmers who reside in the rural areas have their land earmarked for such projects (bio-fuel production) and resultantly they are left to swallow the bitter pill of the effects of large scale land deals. In most studies done in Africa commonly cited benefits of large scale farming such as employment or income generating opportunities to the local communities has fallen far short of expectations. Downsides have often stood in stark contrast to the reported and anticipated benefits of such land deals. The fieldwork for this study was carried out in Chisumbanje communal area, Zimbabwe in July 2013.The study seeks to explore how the introduction of large scale commercial farming by Green Fuel Company affected the community in every aspect of their lives ranging from loss of livelihood strategies, dispossession, displacement and loss of social and economic status. The research assessed the impact of the Chisumbanje large scale land acquisition on the community`s livelihood, examined the community`s perception and response towards the project. The methods used for col-lecting data were, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions with the locals who included men, women and the youths as well as the Observation method. The research answers the question: In what ways and to what extent has large scale land acquisition altered the livelihoods of the Chisumbanje community? In answering this, it adopted two of Bernstein’s key questions in agrarian political economy “who owns what” and “who gets what”. Analytical tools provided through Sustainable Rural Livelihoods framework and Scott’s weapons of the weak theory were also applied. Empirical study of the Chi-sumbanje case shows that there are no convincing positive impacts for the locals, but only a long list of downsides. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15219/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Demssie, Mulugeta Gebeyehu</div> This study studies the current land grabbing and change in labour relations from a political economy perspective, in the context of Ethiopia, based on the case study research in Benishangul Gumuz region. It strives to uncover the implication of wage labour to the livelihoods of workers and how peasants and workers resistance changes the forces of national capital. The study takes its root from the view that when capital needs land, but not labour of locals or it perhaps needs land and cheap labour (Li, 2011). And also the study has used the current concepts and theories of land grabbing from the context of national capital (Oya, 2013, forthcoming) and peasant resistance from below (Borras & Franco, Forthcoming). Firstly, the study has found that the Ethiopian government has dual policy approach; promoting large scale commercial agriculture in low land areas and high value crop production and global market link in the highlands. The project and re-location programs that are facilitated by the state seriously constrained shifting cultivators specifically whose livelihood is depend on the immediate environment. Further, locals lost their cultural entities and indigenous knowledge. Second, the land of locals is needed by the project, but their labour is not needed as they are perceived as having poor working culture. But, the reality is locals demand wage labour which is evidenced by their employment in the local smallholder farms. The farm rather needs cheap migrant labour that is more trapped by poverty which is important for the profit of the farm. Further, the farm oppresses and exploits migrants with a little wage. As a result, labourers leave to smallholder farms for better wage, basic services, security and where there are good social relations. Therefore, wage labour for migrant workers is unlikely to meet their livelihood needs it rather increases their poverty. Third, regional workers affairs office facilitates labour migration with the help of labour agencies. But, officials do not take attention to labour exploitation and oppression by farms. The challenge to not take regulation of labour issues is that the office is very far from the farm areas. In addition, there are no bottom level labour authorities, trade unions and NGOs intervene in labour affairs. So, these make investors to decide labour issues by themselves (laissez-faire approach). Finally, the claim of labourers in the farm is often backed with unkept informal promise and oppression. But, claims are unreported due to the distance of institutions and partly by the silent-nature of labourers. Also when labourers claim to the outside local administrations it is rare that they get attention for their claims. Due to the combination of the above factors, there is no or little improvement of labour rights or if there it longs for a very few days. In general, different class interests, directions of resistance and intra-rural conflicts have led to the difficulty of forming collective actions. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15220/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Mballa-Ngamougou, Tarcile</div> The Green Economy, in the context of sustainable development and poverty reduction, is currently the most important item on the international environmental policy agenda. While conferences proceed and countries prepare for a transition to the Green Economy as advised by UNEP, the definition of the concept remains contested, yet still demanded. In parallel, countries have requested, and agreed on principle that they be given relative flexibility to dictate the implementation of their transitions. The result, like sustainable development before it is a multiple meanings which may position the Green Economy concept for failure in the long term as these meanings erode its practical relevance across contexts. By means of argumentation analysis supported by framing theory, this study argues that the fulfillment of both requests is not necessarily compatible as countries define and redefine the concept of the Green Economy within different contexts. It also argues that ultimately Green Economy does indeed share weaknesses similar to those observed in sustainable development literature which may lead to its long term irrelevance and dim the likelihood of achieving its purpose. The object of analysis is a speech given at an African Economic Conference that is analysed to illustrate the already existing divergence of definitions and expose these weaknesses. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15221/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Hobson, Kerricia R.</div> The resource curse theory has used to provide some explanation for the poor economic performance often seen in oil and mineral countries. It suggests that dependence on natural commodities exploitation is has an overall negative effect on economic growth. Small states however are encouraged to embrace tourism, which for SIDS in particular is based on taking advantage of their natural resources. Applying the resource curse theory to small tourism-dependent states have suggested that the specialization in tourism can lead to curse outcomes and suggests a need to either re-evaluate the benefits of tourism dependence in small states or acknowledge the merit in calls for the special and differential treatment of small states. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15222/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Colque Fernandez, Gonzalo</div> The aim of this research paper is to explore the political economy of contemporary land appropriation on the frontier context where the Bolivian state has no convincing authority and its role is systematically challenged by regional elites. By engaging with the literature on contemporary forms of dispossession, research questions revolve around appropriation of public land for production of flex crops and commodities, the role of the state within these dynamics and in what way landless and poor peasants are affected. The study explores the expansion of agriculture lands suitable for oilseeds production (mainly soya) in Bolivian lowland—Santa Cruz, stressing its significance in the national context. The pa-per argues that although internal pre-existing land disputes played an important role, the rise of land commodification responds to processes of capital accumulation and global crisis. It also provides an account of political struggles, the role of the state to carry out land distribution and its dilemmas. Finally, it high-lights the denial of land and exclusion of landless and poor people as a key condition of capitalist farming where transnational capital is strongly involved. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15223/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Cruz Fuentes, Daniel C.</div> Over the past decade the Brazilian State and Brazilian private companies have started a new period of construction of large hydroelectric dams. In 2009 Brazil has found favorable economic and political conditions in Peru to import electricity. This paper analyzes the interactions of State-State and State-Capital driven by the different interests of the uses of electric energy. It is argued that the expansion of capital through hydroelectric dams depends on the degree of autonomy and capacity of the State(s) and Capital to pursue such projects. Through the chapters the linkage between electricity, the extracting sector of mining and the current resource demand of minerals from China is stressed upon. Finally, while there have been considerations given to the unequal power relations of both States, there has also been claims about the necessity to understand the role of the Peruvian State as the facilitator of the process. In doing so a historical review of State construction helps to comprehend the phenomena. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15214/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Soto Gólcher, Cinthia</div> Agricultural subsidies have been a subject of great tension and divide within the international trading system. This dates from the beginning of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), short after World War II and continues under the current World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. The existing WTO provisions allow for several exceptions from the commitment to reduce subsidies. These are categorized under the Green Box (this means, they are non-or minimal trade distorting). Subsidies provided by developed countries to their farmers, have undergone in the last 10 years an important shift from Amber Box subsidies (highly distorting subsidies) to the Green Box. The latter are conditioned in some countries, to the compliance with certain standards, such as environmental, animal health and food safety. Green Box subsidies criteria also permits the inclusion of environmental programmes, such as the Agri-Environment Payments (AEPs) financed under the Common Agricul-tural Policy (CAP) of the EU. AEPs are a form of Payment for Environmental Services (PES), as they are supposed to recognize the positive externalities that agriculture can generate and minimize the negative ones. This research indicates that these environmental incentives have trade distorting effects, as they have an impact on production, wealth, quality of products and decisions made by farmers. They are also part of a more comprehensive basket of subsidies, which accumulate and allow farmers to continue to produce and make investments that they wouldn’t be able to make without the subsidies. Besides these economic effects and their impact on other countries, important deficiencies in the implementation of the AEPs cannot be overlooked. These include poor targeting, lack of clear objectives, payment calculation, etc. All of which raise important questions about the effectiveness of the system to really pursue environmental benefits. Relevance to Development Studies States have the right to establish the policies that best fit their development and environmental needs. However, as part of the more and more globalized world, States also agree to abide by certain international common rules, which might to some extent, limit that sovereignty. To add more complexity to this already contentious issue, there are occasions when different international regimes overlap or conflict with each other. As recognized by several critics, there is some tension between the international trade and environment regimes. Eckersley (2004: 25, 29) argues that “global trading rules systematically undermine efforts towards international and national environmental regulation” and that “trade rules appear to have the upper hand”. So what is interesting about this research paper is to analyse how so called environmental considerations in the North are main-streamed into agricultural policy and have become an extension of these subsi-dies. Agricultural subsidies as a whole in developed countries are 2 or 3 fold the amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries, so the amount is significant. There is a tension between the multilateral trading system, national develop-ment goals, https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15215/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Mills, Elyse Noble</div> Reasons behind the mass exodus of young people from the countryside have become very clear, as it is understandable that they are generally repelled by the agricultural sector’s instability and the poorly compensated labour it offers. However, the real paradox exists in why some young people still want to farm, especially when they are not from farming families and do not automatically have access to the resources or property required to enter the sector easily. Very little analysis has been done on this intriguing segment of the population and how they are able to gain access to the necessary resources (loans, grants and education) required to be successful – particularly when their governments fail to implement policies that adequately address the obstacles they face. Positioned within an agrarian political economy framework, this analysis of how young farmers’ social position, familial background, and age impact their opportunities asks: How do structural factors impact prospective farmers’ ability to gain access to land, and what are the political and economic institutions that facilitate or hinder this access? How have the mobilisation efforts by young farmers’ organisations induced structural change? The Canadian province of Nova Scotia serves as a case study of an economically weak region within a highly industrialised Northern country, one that actively engages in agriculture in all ten of its provinces, and yet is facing many of the same rural development problems as countries in the Global South. Nova Scotia also contains a significant number of new farmers under the age of 35, and the unity and agency of their communities has contributed to the formation of a number of organisations that have emerged provincially, nationally, and internationally. The implication of this research is to draw attention to the existence of mobilised groups of young farmers globally and the impacts they are making on agricultural policies, demonstrating that many young people do still want to farm and illuminating the necessity for governments to provide them more support in their pursuit of agricultural careers. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15216/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Esteban Cuesta, Cristina</div> This paper seeks to problematize the role of the state and the ‘formal and informal bundle of powers exercised by different actors’ (Wolford et al. 2013) within the outcomes of the implementation of a progressive land policy. The study attempts to provide an empirical base to apply some theoretical concepts to the processes of land grabbing. The paper has illustrated to what extent and how a progressive land policy can protect people from the impacts of the land grabbing phenomena in three steps. First, it has explored the features of the Mozambican land law. Second, the political economy and political ecology of the problematic have been illustrated with the outcomes of a land grabbing case for industrial tree plantations. Third, the balance of powers among the different parties involved in the process has been discussed. Finally it has been concluded that a legal mechanism to protect land rights like a law, cannot shield people from the current of capital accumulation by itself. The power exercised by the state and the other actors involved in the process of a land law implementation are relevant as well. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15217/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>McGee Schiavoni, Christina</div> This study provides a preliminary theoretical and empirical exploration into how ‘competing sovereignties’ are shaping the political construction of food sovereignty—broadly defined as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.’ This study was motivated by a lack of clarity on the ‘sovereignty’ of food sovereignty that had been noted by numerous scholars. Earlier on, questions focused on who was the sovereign of food sovereignty—was it the state? Was it communities? More recently, as there is a growing consensus that there are in fact ‘multiple sovereignties’ of food sovereignty that cut across jurisdictions and scales, the question has become how these ‘multiple sovereignties’ are competing with each other in the attempted construction of food sovereignty. This question is becoming all the more relevant as food sovereignty is increasingly getting adopted into state policy at various levels, calling for state and societal actors to redefine their terms of engagement. This study has attempted to explore questions of competing sovereignties, first by developing an analytical framework using the lenses of scale, geography, and institutions, then by applying that framework to Venezuela, where for the past fifteen years a food sovereignty experiment has been underway in the context of a dynamic, complex, and contested shift in state-society relations. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/15792/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 00:00:01 GMT <div>Akolgo, Tania</div> The discovery of oil in commercially exploitable quantities in Ghana has ignited excitement in the country. This is not only in relation to the increase in government revenue, but people are hopeful it would lead to creation of jobs for the unemployed. However, the development of the sector could also be disastrous for traditional sectors such as agriculture, if not properly managed. Agriculture, which has been the backbone of the Ghanaian economy, could suffer from the effects of oil development. The paper builds on the “resource curse” and “Dutch Disease” literature. The paper seeks to find out how gov-ernment can ensure a balance in both sectors and escape the ‘‘resource curse’’. Though the oil would increase government revenue, it can also worsen the plight of the poor (Ross 2003). The setting is in the Western region, where the oil has been discovered. The paper examines the role of agriculture in the re-gion, from three perspectives, climatic conditions, employment and revenue for government. Qualitative method of semi-structured questions, direct ob-servation and Focus Group Discussions were used to collect the data. The study reveals that the oil sector could have adverse impact on agriculture if in-vestment and promotion of the agricultural sector is neglected. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17335/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Vučković, Božena</div> There is no single place on this planet which is not faced with the problem of waste. The modern way of life together with rising numbers in population are culprits for the growing amounts of waste generated in cities and locations all over the world. This paper explores the issue of waste in the touristic setting, within a small locality, an island in Croatia, which has decided to tackle the is-sue of waste on its own. The study was motivated by the example of Krk is-land, which seemed to have found a way to manage its waste in an ecological and sustainable way. In order to preserve the environment, it is of utmost importance for every locality to find a solution to waste problems. However, solving the issue of waste is often faced with numerous obstacles. There are often difficulties with policy design and implementation on local levels. Local governments are often unable to solely resolve waste problems and the divergence that is often present between local governments and the state are making the search for solutions even more difficult. By looking at the case of Krk island and the way it tackled the issue of waste, this paper explores the innovations in local governance, policy design and implementation, and the role of political will in solving issues of the 21st century in the context of sustainable development. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17338/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Looloitai, Lilian Joseph</div> The pastoralists Maasai primarily depend on livestock keeping for their subsistence which requires access to grazing land and water for maintaining their traditional systems. Mobility is fundamental to control rangeland degradation and sustain pastoralism. The current land policy and increasing privatization of land within the rangelands in Tanzania are seen as quite contrary to the interests of the Maasai, and might lead to the demise of their pastoralism system in the future. Existing land related policies and legislations are suppressing the pastoralists Maasai rights to access, use and manage their common grazing land. The case study of Ewor-endeke village is affected considerably by the implementation of private property rights. Land privatization is not of any value to the Ewor-endeke people who are still depending on pastoralism rather than source of demise and extreme poverty. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17363/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Muchtar Habibi</div> Recently, informal workers have seized a majority of total workforce in the developing world. Casual workers, unpaid family workers and own-account workers are part of this informal army workforce. In the era of global economic liberalization since 1980s, the number of these workers has risen continuously. Apparently, for the neoclassical economists, it seems nothing to be worried about this trend. For these economists, informal workers are likely to be micro-entrepreneurs, developing small business to enhance their social vertical mobility. It is believed that if the market is allowed to function properly, micro-entrepreneurs would be able to transform their business into formal arrangement and thus eliminate informal economy. The state intervention has to stay away from this business activity. The only task expected from the state is to establish and maintain a proper institutional setting for sound business climate. This paper problematizes this claim by analysing the impact of neoliberal adjustment to the expansion of the concept called relative surplus population. Focusing on Indonesia’s development trajectory, the paper shows that, firstly, instead of being micro-entrepreneurs, a majority of informal workers are likely to be vulnerable workers, marked by lacking of fundamental rights of workers in term of remuneration, representation and social protection. Along with unemployed, vulnerable workers are best captured as relative surplus population due to it is created in the context of ‘disconnected capital accumulation’ in a peripheral country. Relative surplus population works outside the core of capitalist productivity and in precarious condition. Secondly, market-led orientation, contrary to the claim to erase informal employment and ultimately relative surplus population, it is likely to perpetuate it. Global market orientation brought about by neoliberal adjustment has contributed to the in-creasing number of relative surplus population. This paper indicates how neoliberal adjustment (economic liberalization) in Indonesia has transformed class relation and subsequently established neoliberal state which is heavily loaded by international capital interest. Neoliberal state, to serve international capital, has shifted the inward-looking economy towards outward-looking orientation. This global market orientation has led to the disconnection of the domestic economy, between agriculture and industry. A large number of agricultural workers who have been separated from their means of subsistence cannot find productive and decent employment in the industry since export-oriented strategy has only created limited job opportunities. This paper proposes that any attempt to take care of relative surplus population entails structural shift both in the class relation and the nature of the state. A relatively equal balance of power between capital and labour is required to transform the neoliberal state into developmental state, promoting domestic oriented economy. Eventually, domestic oriented economy is expected to develop productive and decent jobs to take care of the huge number of relative surplus population. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17365/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Barriga Flores, Paola Rocio</div> This paper studies how the process of integration of Amazon forest people into State dynamics have also implied an integration to the market economy and capitalist relations. It focus on the case of Awajun population in northern Peruvian Amazon, that in recent years have engage in production for the market, especially with cacao and banana. This research uses a property relations approach as entry point to explore the changes in the area, looking at the changes product of the process of the State and Market expansion; and the changes product of the adaptations of Awajun people as well. It argues that the process of State and Market expansion over the Awajun territory have impacted in the constitution of the general landscape, the organization of people and their increasing dependence of money income. These changes have make people look for new livelihood options as the engagement with market-oriented agriculture. As a result, current property relations are an expression of these process of change and how Awajun people are adapting themselves to these processes. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17340/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Thiemann, Louis</div> The aim of this thesis is to search, from a class perspective, for the ‘natural al-lies’ of peasant movements today. What is the conceptual glue that could pit different sectoral movements together, and mutually attentive to their respec-tive causes? I argue that by extrapolating the proposition of a ‘peasant way’ or peasant mode of production, governed and dynamically reproduced by its in-trinsic laws and forces, into general political economy terms, the boundaries of a particular sector – agriculture – can be breached. Thus defining the quest for a peasant existence as the inverse of the proletarian existence – individual con-trol over the means of production, and hence individual decision-making capa-bility over production – we can search for the peasant-like producers of other sectors. From this search emerge fascinating similarities across diverse sectoral struggles. It suggests that the ‘peasant way’ is only one image of an ‘artisan mode of production’ which incarnates in all sectors from housing and educa-tion to the sectors of material and intellectual production. Far from being represented by Marx’s theory of the ‘petty producer’, and hav-ing shown their ability to secure economies of scale through cooperation, these ’outliers’ of the classical Marxist class system must realize their common class position and interests. Their ‘artisanism’ is characterized by disenchantment with both the reality and the ideal of being proletarian, i.e. with lacking direct control over one’s means of production, and thus lacking the capability to di-rectly make production decisions, a view that resonates with a long history of Marxist currents beyond, besides and sometimes against the proletariat. In that sense, artisan-class alliances are, similar to the cross-sectoral alliance of wage workers that characterized anti-capitalist politics in the 20th century, more than mere tactics or mutual solidarity, and depend on a common economic logic of subsistence. Finally, the paper analyzes implications of this perspective on the ongoing debate over non-capitalist institutions and mechanisms of governance. https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/17341/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:00:01 GMT <div>Olofsson, Malin Joanna</div> Based on ethnographic field work conducted during the 2014 Reclaim the Power- Anti Fracking Action Camps, using participant observations, informal discussion and interviews, this study explores coalition formation between ac-tors with very different political and ideological orientations. Evidence from previous environmental direct action groups illustrates how diverse interests, motivations and tactics lead to irreconcilable tensions. This study explores the diverse political and ideological orientations of activists at Reclaim the Power, their demands and objectives, how representation within the camp was negotiated and ultimately how their demands were expressed, as a means to explore the formation of broad based coalitions. Different approaches from the social movement literature are used for analysis. The study illustrates how despite diversity a strong coalition was formed based on the broad resonance of the framing of RTP as a social, economic and environmental justice movement. Framed as such fracking provided an anchor for broad struggles against the state and the political and economic system to form alliances with struggles over localised social and environmental risks facilitating the formation of diverse coalitions.