Coffee and the agrarian questions in Laos and Rwanda: Taking a bottom-up perspective

Illien, Patrick (2024). Coffee and the agrarian questions in Laos and Rwanda: Taking a bottom-up perspective. Journal of rural studies, 106 Elsevier 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103201

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This study systematically explores the agrarian questions of capital, labor and gender in the fast-growing post-conflict economies of Laos and Rwanda. In both countries, export-led agricultural intensification is reshaping rural livelihoods. The article uses mixed methods fieldwork to re-think the agrarian questions from the ground up. It discusses the methodological implications of taking such a bottom-up perspective and provides tools for operationalization. The empirical application then traces the effects and manifestations of capitalist development in the political economies and everyday lives of people in the coffee heartlands of Laos (the Bolaven Plateau) and Rwanda (Nyamasheke district). To this end, local accumulation strategies as well as changing rural labor relations and their implications for women and female-headed households are explored using comparative survey and qualitative interview data. The findings reveal mounting land pressures, widespread commodification of subsistence and growing social differentiation, although to a lesser extent in Laos. There, petty commodity producers increasingly expand by multiplication while in Rwanda many are subject to a reproduction squeeze that forces them into classes of labor characterized by precarious wage employment. Finally, women continue to face multiple barriers to accumulation, particularly in Rwanda where land access is often mediated through male family members in practice, women's agricultural wages are systematically lower and female-headed households remain especially vulnerable. The article concludes that the agrarian questions are neither dead nor resolved but need to be re-thought to address the pressing challenges of late development.

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