Login / Signup

Rural precarity: relational autonomy, ecological dependence and political immobilisation in the agro-industrial margin.

Inge-Merete Hougaard
Published in: The Journal of peasant studies (2022)
Across the world, economic interests and state-making interventions have converged in dispossessing rural and urban dwellers. Drawing on literature on rural transformation, precarity, and life after dispossession, this paper explores how lifeworlds are constructed after dispossession. Based on ethnographic research in an Afro-descendant village in agro-industrial Colombia, I analyse five income-generating activities that together point to rural precarity , characterised by uncertain labour relations, fragile conditions of life, ecological dependence, and reconfigured rural relations. While villagers construct their lifeworlds around community, autonomy, and recognition, the constant search for income and reconfigured rural relations uphold and deepen inequalities in the agro-industrial margin.
Keyphrases
  • south africa
  • wastewater treatment
  • physical activity
  • mental health
  • heavy metals
  • systematic review
  • climate change