From Covert to Overt: Everyday Peasant Politics in China and the Implications for Transnational Agrarian Movements

Author: WALKER, KATHY LE MONS1

Source: Journal of Agrarian Change, Volume 8, Numbers 2-3, April 2008 , pp. 462-488(27)

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content

Abstract:

This contribution spotlights overt collective action as the form of everyday peasant politics in post-socialist China. It first considers the interlinking in the post-socialist period of global neoliberal capitalism and internal (so-called) primitive accumulation by corrupt officials and eager entrepreneurs. Against this background it examines the collective protests of the last 20 years, focusing first on the issue of corrupt local power and then on land seizures. It argues that the emergence of sustained rural contention has been informed by China's socialist legacy as well as older peasant ideologies, and it has involved the coalescence of a shared class perspective among the poor and dispossessed. The final portion of the article considers the implications of these everyday peasant politics, especially land struggles, for transnational agrarian movements.

Keywords: China; peasant protest; rural collective action; land seizures; dispossession; socialism

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0366.2008.00177.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of History, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA

The full text electronic article is available for purchase. You will be able to download the full text electronic article after payment.

$41.89 plus tax      Refund Policy

 

OR

Back to top

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content
Share this item with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Page Help Click here for Page Help
Shopping cart
Tools
Sign in






Need to register?
Sign up here
Text size: A | A | A | A