Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa: Neoliberal Restructuring

This book examines the impact of neoliberalism on peasant agriculture as a key livelihood strategy in Southern and Eastern Africa, against the background of the current development crisis and the crossroads that Southern and Eastern Africa faces. It systematically analyses how the neoliberal architecture has deepened extroverted production for capitalist accumulation and how this has been to the detriment of the rural labour force and small scale and communal landowners. Apart from examining how neoliberalism has triggered land alienations, the book further argues that such policies have also impacted negatively on food security in a number of ways. The book presents empirical evidence through twelve case studies, emerging from in-depth original fieldwork carried out in seven countries in the Southern and Eastern African region.

This book is a must-read for scholars of economics, sociology, anthropology, history, agrarian studies and political science, as well as practitioners and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of the impact of the agrarian neoliberal restructuring on the peasantry in Southern Africa.

Freedom Mazwi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Rhodes University, South Africa. His research and publications over the last ten years largely focus on the political economy of agrarian transitions in Africa. Mazwi is also a researcher with the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies based in Harare and an Editorial Assistant at the Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy. He has published articles in a number of journals, international newspapers, and books.

George Tonderai Mudimu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of Western Cape, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Public Management (Rural Development and Management) from China Agricultural University in Beijing, China. Mudimu researches land politics, rural politics, livelihoods, agrarian change, and political economy.
​Kirk Helliker is a Research Professor and Head of the Unit of Zimbabwean Studies in the Department of Sociology at Rhodes University, South Africa. He supervises a large number of PhD students and writes primarily on livelihoods, land struggles, civil society, and democratization in Zimbabwe. Helliker is the author of various important international publications in the field.