tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761667817153238072024-03-13T04:36:50.325-07:00Haroon's devlogOccasional news and views on international developmentHaroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-11176187072875011322018-11-26T14:44:00.002-08:002018-11-26T14:44:30.252-08:00Recent activities, winter 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">As the winter term of the 2017 - 2018 academic session gets underway, things will be busy. I will be teaching two courses in the fall term at Trent University: Human inequality in global perspective - issues, for the first time, and Peasants, Food and Agrarian Change. However, the fieldwork that I undertook in the summer and fall of 2017 will require that I finalize four reports for the United Nations Poverty-Environment Initiative Africa, on the drivers of gender gaps in agricultural productivity in Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. As part of that work, I will launch the published versions of the reports just as the term comes to an end, in Addis Ababa, Lilongwe, Dar es Salaam and Kampala. It is also probable that fieldwork in Ethiopia will begin. At the same time, I will be undertaking an assignment for the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy in Hanoi, on gender and economics, and this will take me to Hanoi late in the term.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">If that was not enough, I already have two speaking engagements lined up. One will take me back to Berlin in February, and my ongoing relationship with GLOCON at the Free University. The second will take me back to my former place of employment, the International Institute of Social Studies, in March. I will also, most likely, be speaking at the annual conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics, and at the annual conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Work will commence in earnest on a new book, of which I am co-editor: <i>The Elgar Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies</i>. This was due to start last year, but issues with my co-editors slowed things down. Several pieces that I have written will be published, and several more that are in peer review will be finalized.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i>is ongoing, as is work as Associate Editor of <i>Feminist Economics</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">At the same time, I am pretty sure that over the course of the next few months something new will come up; it always does. So the winter of 2018 looks, as ever, to be crowded.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-78033354721812077752018-01-04T12:50:00.003-08:002018-01-04T12:50:51.660-08:00Recent activities, fall 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">As the 2017 - 2018 academic session gets underway, things will be busy. As usual, I will be teaching two courses in the fall term at Trent University: Human inequality in global perspective - introduction, and The world food system. However, the fieldwork that I undertook in the summer of 2017 will require that I draft and finalize two reports for the United Nations Poverty-Environment Initiative Africa, on the drivers of gender gaps in agricultural productivity in Uganda and Tanzania. As part of that work, I will also undertake fieldwork in Malawi in October, writing a report that must be completed by the end of the year. Work will also conclude on reports on the gender gap in agricultural productivity in Ethiopia and Rwanda. If that was not enough, I will lead the annual PhD School of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development in September in Ottawa, and in November I will speak to the National Convention of the National Farmer's Union. Work will commence on a new book, of which I am co-editor: <i>The Elgar Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies</i>. Several pieces that I have written will be published, and several more that are in peer review will be finalized. Finally, I have been fairly heavily involved in the development of the women's economic empowerment section of the forthcoming United Nations Development Programme Global Gender Strategy 2018 - 2021; this will require some travel as well. Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i>is ongoing, as is work as Associate Editor of <i>Feminist Economics</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">At the same time, I am pretty sure that over the course of the next few months something new will come up; it always does. So the fall of 2017 looks, as ever, to be crowded.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-44246974767883924062017-09-07T02:39:00.002-07:002017-09-07T02:39:39.440-07:00Recent activities, winter and spring 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">During the winter of 2017 I will take only my second (half-)sabbatical in 30 years of teaching. During my sabbatical I plan to work on my next book, </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Feast or Famine? Can Small Farmers Feed the World?</i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"> I will do some of that work at China Agricultural University in Beijing, and some of it at the Free University in Berlin. I will also undertake a program review of the International Development Program at the University of Waterloo, and will act as external examiner for doctoral dissertations at the universities of Toronto and New South Wales. If all goes according to plan, I will do some work for UN Women in Ethiopia and Rwanda on the costs of gender inequality in farming in both countries. Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">is ongoing, as is work as Associate Editor of </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Feminist Economics</i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">. If I am very fortunate, I might even be able to squeeze in some writing time in Tuscany.</span></span></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-59567908648901631742016-12-19T07:05:00.001-08:002016-12-19T07:05:12.390-08:00Recent activities, fall 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">As we get going into the 2016 -17 academic year, it will be very busy. In addition to my normal teaching at Trent University, which includes IDST 1001H, Human inequality in global perspective and IDST - SAFS - ANTH - GEOG - SOCI 2500H, The world food system, I will be acting as an internal examiner on a Trent University cultural studies PhD dissertation in early October -- the first time I have examined a cultural studies doctoral dissertation. In October I will travel once more to Uganda, to undertake advisory services on engendering agricultural and rural development policies and programmes in the forthcoming national budget. In November I will travel to the South Asian University in Delhi, to deliver a keynote address at a conference, and in December I will travel to the Free University in Berlin to also deliver a keynote address. From that point on, I will start my half-sabbatical; only the second one that I have had in 30 years of teaching. During my sabbatical I plan to work on my next book, </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Feast or Famine? Can Small Farmers Feed the World?</i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"> I will do some of that work at China Agricultural University in Beijing, and some of it at the Free University in Berlin. Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">is ongoing, as is work as Associate Editor of </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Feminist Economics</i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">.</span></span></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-85877722186279063692016-09-16T07:10:00.001-07:002016-09-16T07:10:29.386-07:00Recent activities, spring 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">With the 2015 - 2016 academic year coming to an end, my work schedule will accelerate. Following a quality assurance review of the Department of Economics at Brandon University, I will travel to China for the first time in over 20 years to deliver a talk at the College of Agriculture in Beijing. This will be followed by a keynote address at the end of April, delivered to the Waterloo Food Issues Group. I then travel to Uganda, to undertake advisory services for UN Women on a portfolio of agricultural development projects designed to empower women. In June I will attend the annual conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics in Galway, Ireland, where I will deliver a paper and chair a panel. In July I have two conferences: one, at Wageningen University, on the Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation; and one at Durham University, the annual conference of the World-Ecology Network. In August I will attend the International Rural Sociology Association Congress, where I will deliver a paper. I will also be working on two invited book chapters, on the agrarian question and human inequality and on rural livelihoods. At some point I will begin to prepare my fall teaching at Trent University.Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i>is ongoing, as is work as Associate Editor of <i>Feminist Economics</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It promises to be an exceptionally busy spring and summer.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-62153758547441882002016-03-30T13:12:00.002-07:002016-03-30T13:12:33.392-07:00Recent activities, fall 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">I am already three weeks into the 2015 - 2016 academic year, and things have been happening very quickly these past few weeks. I have started my fall term teaching at the University while also attending to the myriad details that have to be completed at the start of the year by chairs of departments at Trent University. While this has taken up the majority of my time, this weekend I will head to Halifax to offer comments on two papers being delivered at an international workshop entitled "Can genetically modified crops help the poor". At the same time I am working on a slightly overdue book review for the <i>Journal of Peasant Studies </i>and working on evaluating a number of papers that I collated for panels at the annual conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics in Berlin in July, to see whether these are publishable. Of course, work as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i>is ongoing. Finally, t</span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">here is a strong possibility that I will once more be heading for Uganda in late October to do more work for UN Women on engendering economic policy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Fall is always busy.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-23398926111279195232015-09-29T13:57:00.004-07:002015-09-29T13:58:02.544-07:00Recent activities, spring / summer 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">With the 2014 - 2015 academic year at an end, I now move into a very busy late spring / early summer. Having just returned from almost 4 weeks in east Asia, where I delivered workshops to the Vietnam Women's Union and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, on behalf of UN Women, in a few days I head to Uganda to do some work for the Ministry of Finance on engendering economic policy. In between, I delivered a seminar at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, which was very well received indeed, and there is a PhD defence at the University of Western Ontario. I will, as usual, be attending the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development and the Canadian Consortium of University Programs in International Development Studies.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">In terms of research, I am trying to finish up a draft chapter for the second edition of the textbook <i>Critical Food Studies</i>, as well as a review article for the <i>Journal of Agrarian Change </i>on peasant resistance in Afghanistan over the last 40 years. Work as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies </i>will, of course, be ongoing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">While the spring and summer are quieter times for me in my role as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies, while I enter my last year as Chair there will be continuing responsibilities. Moreover, I will be preparing my fall term courses. This will be done with one eye on the mid-July Summer School of the University of Manitoba's Institute for Geopolitical Economy, where I will be teaching over 3 days.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">I am, however, especially looking forward to Convocation on 3 June, when I will receive Trent University's Distinguished Research Award.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Other things will come up: they always do.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-2909417576043104222015-08-30T09:27:00.000-07:002015-08-30T09:27:58.446-07:00The trial of Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco, a Mozambican economist, has been <span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;">accused of libeling the then President, Armando Guebuza, in an open letter which he posted on Facebook in November 2013. Prosecutors have charged him under the law on crimes against state security, since Mozambican legislation classifies defaming the head of state, and a range of other political figures, as a security offence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The trial begins on Monday, 31 August, at 9 am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Support for Castel-Branco can be expressed by signing a petition being circulated by Amnesty International - Portugal. It is available here: http://www.amnistia-internacional.pt/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=40&sf_pid=a077000000Te78FAAR </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;">Some of Castel-Branco's supporters have argued that he should not have been disrespectful to the then President. Jacques Depelchin has written an essay that explicitly looks at the question of the language used by going back in African history to find an answer. In order to circulate this as widely as possible, I reproduce the entire essay here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco vs. Mozambique: What is at stake?</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This case of Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco (CNCB) vs. the Mozambican State is an illustration of what has gone
wrong in so many African countries following the end of formal colonial rule:
citizens are forced to resort to strong, at times shocking language, in order to
remind leaders of their responsibilities toward their own citizens.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This kind of situation is as old as African history, i.e., as old as the history of
humanity, as one can see from the words of The Eloquent Peasant*, addressing a
magistrate, in search of justice against someone who had robbed him. Through a
long and painful pleading, this peasant begins to realize that high officials seem to be
more committed to injustice. Throughout the story, the readers are kept informed
of the peasant’s state of mind, and his growing frustration as he uses more and more
blunt and fearless language.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no space to reproduce the whole text. Here, excerpts are meant to draw
attention to the similarities between CNCB’s situation and that of a peasant’s story,
more than 4,000 years ago, in Ancient Egypt.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant addressing the High Magistrate, representing Pharaoh:</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The standard for straight discourse has turned crooked
and judges have taken to stealing.
The glib trickster obscures the meaning of issues, perverting justice.
He who should give breath is strangling one fallen on the ground;
the comforter makes the victim pant;
the arbiter turns plunderer; the remover of need orders the causing of it.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More than 4,000 years later, human beings, all over the Planet, have had to seek
justice from people, from systems and practices of thinking, hostile to those human
beings who are not afraid to challenge injustices, any injustices, whenever and
wherever they appeared.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No wonder then that, in Mozambique, for example, Samora Machel liked to remind
people to always ask themselves “who is the enemy?” As one reads the accusations
against CNCB, is it not possible to see that the enemy of the accused and the
accusers might be the same? Observing the history of capitalism, should not any
reasonable human being ask themselves the following questions: is capitalism a
crime against humanity? Is justice for all possible under capitalism? Under
capitalism, why does impunity protect, with very few exceptions, the most powerful
individuals?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Could it be, then, that, questions are not being asked because Africans, in particular,
have turned their backs on their own history? In these times when evidence of
liquidation of humanity is mounting, the case of CNCB might be understood as an
issue that goes far beyond the borders of Mozambique and the reigning conception
of justice within those borders. What is at stake is an understanding of justice as it
has been defended by billions of peasants, since the days of The Eloquent Peasant. If
CNCB loses this case, it will be much more than the loss by an individual. Let’s hope
that his accusers also understand what is at stake because the Eloquent Peasant is
addressing them:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>He who should guide toward the laws is sponsoring crime.
So who will combat evil? He who should fight laxity is causing wrongdoing.
He who should correct another is steeped in crookedness.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant is not afraid to tell the Magistrate, how justice should be
delivered:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Doing right on earth means doing justice, Maât.
Tell no falsehood, you are a great one.
Don’t be flippant; gravity is what suits you.
Don’t tell lies; a just balance is your quality.
Do not be nonchalant; your virtue is rectitude.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the face of such impertinence, the Magistrate makes sure the Eloquent Peasant
knows who is in charge by having him beaten up. To which the Eloquent Peasant
responds as follows:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Ah, so the son of Merw is bent on going wrong.
His eyes are blind to what he sees; his ears are deaf to what he hears. </i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant is not afraid by the arrogance of power, especially if, in the
process, it breeds injustice:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Do not display arrogance just because you have power.
That is the way to avoid evil catching up with you.
Postpone one difficulty, it develops into two. In the end,
it is the eater who tastes, the one questioned who responds,
and only the sleeper sees the dream. As for the judge
who acts culpably, he is as an exemplar for the criminal.
You fool! You see, you are exposed.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From this text, it is easy to see how human beings, from thousands of years ago,
faced with betraying their own conscience, by keeping quiet, preferred to use the
strongest language possible, even at the risk of submitting to the most extreme
punishment. From this text, one learns that there must never ever be compromise
with justice, with how Mâât is understood and practiced.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given this very long history of humanity, too often expediently shortened for the
sake of enforcing a different view of the world in which we currently live, should
one not put oneself in the same situation as CNCB, seeing, thinking that his country
has gone completely astray from what had been envisioned back in 1975, the year of
Independence from colonial rule? He is accused of defaming a sitting President, of
attacking the security of the State, but, at the same time, is he not echoing The
Eloquent Peasant who, railed against thievery and injustice. Is that not the kind of
eloquence one would want to hear daily from all corners of this Planet? In that
combative spirit, the Eloquent Peasant goes on:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You are supposed to hear cases, so as to arbitrate
between two litigants, and to punish the thief for his crime.
But behold, instead you are supporting the fraudster.
Trust has been placed in you, but you have turned transgressor.
You are empowered to be a retaining dam protecting the poor man,
to keep him from drowning.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With regard to delivering justice-Mâât, The Eloquent Peasant, having suffered an
injustice, does not need any lesson from anybody, and he also knows what his
frankness might cost him:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Look with your eyes open. The judge is now a thief.
The deliverer now causes distress; the comforter causes pain.
Cheating devalues justice. So fill the measure honestly.
Do not diminish, do not augment justice. If you get something,
give to your fellow. Too much talk is dishonest.
Now my anguish is causing estrangement.
My sorrow will lead to a parting of the ways.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant mixes fair-mindedness with a blunt reminder of what it
means to be a judge:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>It is acknowledged that you are educated, open-minded, accomplished,
but not for cheating. Do not get involved in theft.
You act badly, exactly like everyone.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the Eloquent Peasant dares to predict what will happen to the one who sides
with the cheaters:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>My misery lies exposed before you.
What more do you want?
Your sloth will lead you to perdition.
Your covetousness will turn you into a fool.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Your greed will earn you enemies.
It is certain you will not find another peasant like me.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given this long history of humanity, now, currently, systematically dehumanized not
just in Mozambique, not just in Africa, but everywhere from Fukushima to Gaza,
From Haiti to Ferguson, from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the Shackdwellers of
Durban, from urban and rural areas the world over, should one not call for some
form of reprieve, some sort of time out?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given this long history of humanity, is it not reasonable to ask questions that are
being asked, silently, but not voiced for fear of retribution? Should one not be proud
of hearing voices like CNCB’s reminding leaders of what is expected from them,
echoing the Eloquent Peasant from long ago? Yes, let us be as blunt as the Eloquent
Peasant, calling a spade a spade, a thief a thief, even if the latter happens to be the
highest official of the land:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Robber! Thief! Snatcher!
Officials appointed to punish crime
now provide shelter for the aggressor.
Officials were appointed to repress lies.
So do not cause the plaintiff to be afraid before you.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant himself is bewildered: how could an official who is supposed
to uphold justice, have turned into a mere thief:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Are you then just a thief? When people are brought to you,
should troops be stationed with you, for the distribution of land lots?</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seen through this wide-angled lens, is it not possible for CNCB’s accusers to
understand that instead of preserving the sanctity of the immunity of a sitting
President, together they could be working toward the greater goal of changing the
direction of a world headed for self-annihilation, and move toward healing
practices, aimed at re-humanization of humanity?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like the Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, Heads of State, in today’s Africa, are expected,
according to the Constitution, to be the guarantors of justice. However, as the
Peasant from Ancient Egypt found, being the guarantor of justice does not,
automatically mean, that the Pharaoh (and/or his magistrates) will implement the
rule of law, expeditiously, equitably. In Africa, the temptation of Heads of State is to
trample the Constitution whenever it suits them.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Comparatively and in retrospect, CNCB’s situation does seem much worse than that
of the Eloquent Peasant. Although Mozambique went through an armed struggle to
end colonial rule, the colonial/colonizing mindset still permeates the relations of
power between the citizens and the rulers.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the Eloquent Peasant has demonstrated, persistence, patience, and honesty,
finally defeated evil in all of its manifestations. Just as importantly, his
uncompromising adherence to truth called for blunt language, even at the risk of
losing his case. His distillation of how truth and justice are preserved, although the
product of more than 4,000 years ago, are as pertinent today as they were then:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The stand-balance of the people is their tongue,
it is also the hand balance that detects shortcomings.
Punish one who deserves punishment.
The norm is patterned after you. Falsehood misleads
when it needs to; but truth returns to correct it.
A match for lies is truth. Lies may grow green,
but do not last till harvest.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Eloquent Peasant knows that to plead for a just cause, for truth, is the best thing
any human being can do. He calls on the officials, low and high, not to dismiss him:</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Pay attention to a man pleading his just cause.
There is no yesterday for the slothful,
no friend for the one deaf to truth,
no feast day for the covetous.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is true that whenever and wherever power is challenged, it finds it offensive if not
insulting, but then, is it not true, too, that whenever and wherever power has ruled
and generated injustices, it has salted the injuries with built-in practices of
impunity? To the point where power must mean, by definition, today, injustices
committed with the full awareness that they will be rewarded with impunity.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why has power become so powerful that, in order to challenge it, our eloquent
peasants must resort to words and phrases that sound offensive to the ears of those
who have grown accustomed to impunity?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How else to explain the consternation caused when a truth is given voice?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his book, <i>The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born</i>, the Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei
Armah showed how the promise of decolonization, in Ghana, had fallen horribly
short off the mark. To this day, on the continent that invented writing, leaders
continue to submit their citizens to dehumanizing conditions and practices
inherited from a system that has inverted human values to serve those who have
most benefitted from a process of liquidation of humanity, wherever this humanity
has tried to breathe and stay alive.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let us simplify the question further: Why does an entire continent seem to have
been satisfied with partial decolonization, benefitting a select few? Why are the
cumulative practices of justice, of Maat, present in African cultures all across the
continent not been re-integrated into the education and society of “post colonial
Africa”. Why has the literature of Ancient Egypt not been integrated into the
educational system of all African countries as one might have expected from the
work of people like Cheikh Anta Diop, Théophile Obenga? Did not their work aim at
uprooting the colonization of the minds so successfully achieved by the colonizers?</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Through nine eloquent petitions, the peasant of Ancient Egypt could easily be
mistaken for a lawyer in contemporary Africa, making the case in court for justice to
be done. The sense of justice that motivated the peasant, more than 4,000 years
ago, can be seen, echoing in CNCB’s denunciations of abuses of power by a sitting
President.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This issue is supposed to be settled in court, run and organized by the state. Surely,
there could be other ways of settling it. In a world in which the practices of finding
a scapegoat in order to resolve a conflict, it will be crucial to point out how to move
away from those practices so that both sides, the accuser and the accused, or, maybe
a better way of putting it: accuser and accused having suffered wounds, they should
seek a common ground, new practices from which to heal, not just for their own
sake, but for the sake of turning the exercise into a process for re-humanizing
humanity.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is at stake in Mozambique is not just about what will happen to CNCB, what is
at stake is larger than the individuals involved. Anyone looking beyond
Mozambique can see that humanity, for the first time in its history, is facing the real
possibility of self-annihilation.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.0799999237061px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="line-height: 16.0799999237061px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EndNotes
* This essay was inspired by the work of the collective that has been
transliterating and translating texts from Ancient Egyptian Literature, starting in
2011.<i> The Eloquent Peasant</i> will follow <i>The Story of Sanhat</i>, already available
from Per Ankh Publishers. The collective members are Ayi Kwei Armah, Ayesha
Harruna Attah, Jacques Depelchin and Yoporeka Somet. </span></span></div>
</div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-35576512062303684942015-05-04T03:02:00.001-07:002015-05-04T03:02:13.001-07:00Current activities, fall 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 18.6666660308838px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">The summer is at an end, and I must say, it has been a whirlwind. In May and June I gave seminars to PhD students at Oxford University and the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, where I used to work. Following the preparation of my fall and winter courses, in mid-July I hit the road, providing capacity building in gender and economics to the Vietnam Women's Union, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Financial and Budgetary Affairs of the Vietnamese National Assembly, UN Women Vietnam and the United Nations Development Programme in Vietnam. I then moved on to Kenya, where, for the Poverty - Environment Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, I delivered a five-day capacity building workshop on poverty, environment and gender-responsive economic planning to civil servants from ministries of finance in five east and southern African countries as well as people working within the UN system in east Africa.</span></div>
<div style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 18.6666660308838px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 18.6666660308838px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Now I can settle back into my 'real' job: teaching Human inequality in global perspective and The World Food System at Trent University. In addition to that, and my usual administrative tasks as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies, I will be giving presentations in the fall to Engineers Without Borders and at a workshop at the University of Waterloo entitled 'Mapping the state of play in the global food landscape'. I have a number of writing commitments that I must complete before the end of October. Finally, I will be settling into my new duties as Editor-in-Chief of the <i>Canadian Journal of Development Studies</i>.</span></div>
<div style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 18.6666660308838px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333330154419px; line-height: 18.6666660308838px;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Of course, other things will come up: they always do, as a busy summer gives way to a busy fall.</span></div>
</div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-33399211605610172132014-08-30T01:13:00.000-07:002014-08-30T01:13:32.866-07:00Teaching feminist economics to gender-blind policymakers in Hanoi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On 21 August I posted a blog for the International Association of Feminist Economics, of which I am a founder-member. The post can be read <a href="http://feministeconomicsposts.iaffe.org/2014/08/21/teaching-feminist-economics-to-gender-blind-policymakers-in-hanoi/">here</a>.</div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-15410344968600292272014-08-30T00:59:00.001-07:002014-08-30T00:59:55.899-07:00Recent activities, spring 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">With the end of the winter term I move into a period of quite hectic activity. I have just started work on a new book, <i>Feast or Famine: Small Farmers, Industrial Agriculture and the Future of Food </i>and this will occupy a good deal of my time over the spring and into the summer. In addition, I am revising an article for publication in <i>Third World Quarterly </i>and a chapter in an edited book on the agrarian transition in India. The spring is also conference season for academics, and this is no different for me. I will be part of a plenary at both Historical Materialism Toronto as well as the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development in May, and will deliver a keynote address to the international conference on </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Feeding Cities: Rural-Urban Connections and the Future of Family Farming, being held at Ryerson University in June.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">In mid-May I will also lead a masterclass for DPhil research students in development studies at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, in the United Kingdom, as well as a class for MA and PhD students at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, the Netherlands, in June. Also in terms of teaching, June is the time when I prepare my fall and winter courses at Trent University. My University administrative tasks will also continue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">In terms of my advisory work, I will continue in my role as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"> United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team. During the spring I will be starting preparations for a couple of assignments that will take place in the summer, in Vietnam and in Kenya, where I facilitate capacity-building activities in gender-responsive economics and economic and environmental policy. I have also agreed to act as an external adviser to an independent evaluation of UN Women's activities in women's economic empowerment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">It will be a busy spring.</span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-33711754965866254712014-04-16T13:32:00.000-07:002014-08-30T00:59:36.313-07:00Recent activities, winter 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">As I head into 2014 the winter will be unusually busy, even by my standards. Of course, there is teaching, at Trent University: the Blackboard site for my winter term course, IDST - ANTH - SAFS 2600H, 'Peasants, food and agrarian change', is ready and teaching starts on Monday 6 January at 9 in the morning. I must say that I always look forward to teaching this course because it is, in a very real sense, what I do. At the University I will also have my administrative responsibilities as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies. In terms of scholarly activity, there will be a lot of it. In early January I will give a Keynote Address at the 2014 Conference of the Atlantic International Studies Association Annual Meeting, in Sackville, Nova Scotia. In late January I will be off to Pondicherry in India -- my first trip in 5 years -- to give a paper at a conference on The Agrarian Transition in India. I will then be delivering a Keynote Address to the annual International Development Studies Student's Association conference at the University of Toronto in Scarborough. Other talks are probable as I continue to promote my most recent book, </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Hungry for Change: Farmers, Food Justice and the Agrarian Question. </i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">In terms of my advisory work, I will continue in my role as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the</span><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"> United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team as they continue to roll out the Global Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative in the Asia-Pacific region. I will complete revisions to a training module on gender, economics and the environment in early January, and in February will travel to Vietnam -- my first trip in 7 years -- to deliver tailor-made training to senior civil servants in the economics ministries of the Vietnamese government. I will also spend some time in Seoul as part of that work in May, to which I look forward. There is also the possibility of some work with the UN Capital Development Fund as I have designed a major project for them. It will be a busy winter.</span></span></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-66193286618116781182013-12-31T07:01:00.001-08:002013-12-31T07:01:55.689-08:00Recent activities, fall 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">As usual, the end of the summer brings about a flurry of work-related activities. Of course, there is teaching, at Trent University: the Blackboard sites for my two fall term courses, IDST 1000Y 'Human inequality in global perspective' and IDST - ANTH - SAFS 2500H, 'The world food system', are ready and teaching starts on Thursday 5 September. The fall term is also the busiest time of year for me, in terms of my administrative responsibilities as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies. In terms of scholarly activity, there will be a lot of it. In mid-September I will be at Yale University's conference on Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue, where I will deliver a paper, and in November I will act as Esau Distinguished Visiting Professor at Menno Simons College, which is part of the University of Winnipeg. Other talks are probable as I continue to promote my most recent book, </span><i style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Hungry for Change: Farmers, Food Justice and the Agrarian Question. </i><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">Finally, work continues on my </span><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">long-delayed book project, <i>An Introduction to Feminist Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies</i>, which is being co-written with Nicky Pouw and which will be published by Routledge. In terms of my advisory work, I will continue in my role as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the</span><span style="color: #3f3f3f; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;"> United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team as they continue to roll out the Global Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative in the Asia-Pacific region. I will spend some time in Seoul as part of that work in October. There is also the possibility of some work with UN Women, as I have done quite a lot with them over the course of the past year, and a major project with which I am closely involved is being developed by the UN Capital Development Fund. The next 4 months will, as ever, be busy.</span></span></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-4901342254609217812013-12-12T17:39:00.001-08:002013-12-12T17:39:40.338-08:00Columbite Tantalite: a short film by Chiwetel Ejiofor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Chiwetel Ejiofor is a remarkable actor, and a sure-fire Academy Award winner, for his historically-unprecedented acting in <i>12 Years a Slave</i>. But I did not know that he also writes and directs. In this, a short film about coltan and the developed world's need for the mineral resources of the developing world, he shows both an understanding of how an artist perceives the issues as well as how an artist can make these issues accessible in a way that we academics cannot. It is 12 minutes long; watch it.<div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-47201568898434791992013-12-09T08:37:00.000-08:002013-12-10T17:16:58.495-08:00Mandela and me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRisQh5_yHyv2IOSTRnvhDN2o0N2WhWkfH4RsP3sQvPlDJD58zZ9eoX26OpltqkmHkRnqzmBqD0jI7qFi5SdcS7KiQ74X5L8pDozBnbk58HwMHKz80ErapIpKuH1Je7jitHmJF5hWOoGI/s1600/wpid-nelson-mandela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRisQh5_yHyv2IOSTRnvhDN2o0N2WhWkfH4RsP3sQvPlDJD58zZ9eoX26OpltqkmHkRnqzmBqD0jI7qFi5SdcS7KiQ74X5L8pDozBnbk58HwMHKz80ErapIpKuH1Je7jitHmJF5hWOoGI/s320/wpid-nelson-mandela.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have not offered any personal
reflections on the death of Nelson Mandela last week, in part
because, like so many people around the world, the past few days have
involved a period of self-reflection in which I have tried to
understand why he had such a hold over me. I think now I have a
better understanding of why this inevitable death has struck me, and
many other comrades, so hard.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I never met Mandela. However, all the
friends that I know who did meet Mandela share a remarkable trait: a
picture of Mandela occupies a central place in their home. For these
remarkably principled activist-academics, who lived in Tanzania or
Mozambique or Zimbabwe during the darkest days of apartheid, were all
immensely moved by his sacrifice, his struggle, and his success.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some in the media, reflecting on his
death, have challenged this 'success'. They note the remarkable
worsening of inequality in South Africa since the first democratic
elections in 1994 (despite the construction of Africa's best social
protection system), the high share of the population – one-third –
that live in dire poverty, the absurdly high levels of unemployment
amongst the black working class, even though all the while a small
share of the black population has become fabulously, even obscenely,
wealthy. The figure of Cyril Ramaphosa looms large here: in the
1980s, as leader of the National Union of Miners, Ramaphosa was an
inspirational leader in the struggle against apartheid, both in South
Africa and outside it. I personally felt it. Now he is a very
wealthy possible future president, heavily invested in the Marikana
mine, where 34 striking workers were shot dead last year. For many
of us involved in the struggle against apartheid, the Marikana
massacre was a trip back to the future: where the heavy hand of a
ruthless state was once again violently repressing black workers,
with the key difference that this time the ruthless state now was run
by the African National Congress rather than the National Party of
the unrepentant Pik Botha (famously caricartured on <i>Spitting Image
</i>as saying 'Fish live in trees
and eat pencils. We are bringing reform to South Africa').</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For my
friends of my generation, the loss that we feel with the passing of
Mandela is rooted in something very real: he was a great
anti-imperialist leader of a national liberation struggle who stands
apart because he succeeded in what he set out to do. Samora Machel,
Thomas Sankara, Maurice Bishop – they are long since dead, largely
forgotten by the wider world (but not by us!) and they all died a
violent death. Robert Mugabe and Daniel Ortega are hopelessly
compromised. Fidel Castro's achievements will be undone when he
dies. Only Mandela, in
relentlessly maintaining that the Freedom Charter was the basis by
which the ANC would rule, and then keeping his promise, succeeded in
what he set out to achieve, terminating a labour regime based upon
racial oppression and replacing it with a vibrant, inclusive
non-ethnic multiparty political democracy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was why we
marched to Trafalgar Square every year, come what may, to hear Oliver
Tambo (whose ANC offices were close to where I was living, in a
then-shoddy but now gentrified part of north London) and other exiled
leaders of the ANC, some of whom were our good friends, along with
Trevor Huddleston and the other senior leaders of the anti-apartheid
movement in the United Kingdom, which was vibrant and alive and
joyous. During the 1980s it was as if a family was coming together
to surround the South African Embassy to demand an end to apartheid,
and to celebrate the community that was the left in the UK in the
1980s: anti-apartheid, to be sure, but also the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, miner support groups, the left of the Labour Party,
Trotskyists, liberals, Eurocommunists, environmentalists, gay
activists, and more. Margaret Thatcher denounced us as 'the enemy
within', and we took to wearing badges that proclaimed that we were
the enemy within. I recall in 1986 when we were organizing a 40 mile
bike ride to raise money for an ANC school in Tanzania; I had not
planned to actually ride, but at the last minute decided to do so, on
a glorious day, arriving in Luton to a reception at the local working
men's club where we were made to feel so welcome, by total strangers,
united only in our denunciation of apartheid. Or a dinner in
Winnipeg in 1987 to raise money for the ANC, when one of Winnipeg's
small African community rose to say that until South Africa was free
none of us would be free.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mandela
may have been a radical, but he was also a pragmatist who realized
that his own personal world-historic role was not to build socialism
in South Africa but to terminate a racially-based labour regime and
ensure that the transition to majority rule and political democracy
worked. He also knew what had happened in other societies where
minorities had violently repressed majorities, and understood that
for the political transition to work he personally would have to
reconcile with his jailers. Much of the current celebration of his
life revolves around this seemingly unique ability to accommodate,
but I suspect that behind his steely exterior he hated what he had to
do, as his life and, notwithstanding his marriage to the great Graça
Machel at the age of 80, his
family had been ripped from him, and he only relentlessly pursued
reconciliation because he believed he had to do it. Which, for those
of us who remember the state-fomented violence in KwaZulu Natal with
Inkatha, was correct. That could have been the future – but it was
not.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="en" style="font-family: inherit;">I
must confess – in 1993 and 94 and 95 I was a pessimist. When Chris
Hani was assassinated prior to the first democratic elections, and in
light of the violence in KawZulu Natal, I thought the country would
descend into a bloodbath, the inequities and injustice were so great.
That it did not was due to the moral force of Mandela, as well as
his uncanny political acumen. What Mandela lost, though, with Hani's
assassination, was the next step of the transition: if he had been
president, Hani would, in my view, have overseen the dismantling of
the economics of apartheid, which to this day remain too largely in
place.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=776166781715323807" name="firstHeading"></a>In
1990 when Mandela was released I was on the prairies; my stepfather
had suddenly died two days before, we were arranging his cremation,
but we still had to watch Mandela walk out, fist aloft, wondering
what he was like, what would he say, this man for which whose release
we had campaigned for a very long time indeed. Margaret Thatcher
still thought he was a terrorist, the US still had him on their
terror watch list, and don't start me going on about Chester Crocker
or David Cameron or Stephen Harper. Mandela's release was not due to
governments in the West, no matter what they are saying today as his
funeral approaches. It was due to resistance in the townships and in
the mines that was supported by the sanctions and divestment
movement, which was a movement of people of which we were a part.
But it was more, and this cannot be forgotten. It was not just the
economic contradictions of an unprofitable racially-based labour
regime that made the fall of apartheid inevitable by 1990. No:
Victoria Brittain's reports in late 1987 and early 1998 about the ongoing battle of <span style="color: black;"><span lang="en">Cuito
Cuanavale, in Angola, made it very clear. The Angolans were facing defeat at the hands of the
invading South African Defence Forces, and, in their desperation, they called on
Cuba. Fidel Castro responded by sending thousands of troops, who
defeated the South Africans in a series of set encounters and
demonstrated to the apartheid regime that military defeat was
inevitable.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So Mandela's triumph was far from
inevitable, and that is the single most important lesson that I carry
forward with his passing. Nelson Mandela showed us that immense
change is possible, but it takes a movement to build it. He showed
us that processes of change must be very carefully and judiciously
navigated, and that it does require, at times, knowing when to
compromise and when not to compromise. He also showed us, in his
post-retirement campaign work around HIV/AIDS, that the process of
change is still not finished: “Poverty is not natural. It is
man-made” and “while poverty persists, there is no true
freedom”. Mandela played a critical role in ending one of the most
putrid labour regimes of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, rooted as it
was in racial oppression. The best way of living up to his ideals
will be to carry his struggle forward, build a movement, and end
systems of economic exploitation, in our homes, in our communities,
in our countries, and across the face of world. To paraphrase the man
himself, <span style="color: black;">s</span><span style="color: black;">ometimes
it falls on a generation to be great, and we can be that great
generation.</span></span></div>
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-37454688629553588542013-10-09T11:42:00.000-07:002013-10-09T11:42:02.001-07:00Wealth inequality in the UK<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From www.inequalitybriefing.org, an excellent visual overview of the state of inequality in the UK today.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/aOJ93tAbPP0" width="420"></iframe></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-75293502711469872062013-10-07T09:18:00.000-07:002013-10-07T09:18:09.369-07:00Unpaid care work, poverty and women's human rights<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
ActionAid International, the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, and Oxfam are facilitating the launch today of a report on unpaid care work and women's poverty by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. The Report will be presented to the UN later in the month.<br />
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A video overview of the Report highlights its key messages, which has been a focal part of my research and advisory activity for decades:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VVW858gQHoE" width="420"></iframe></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-12911236018739365502013-07-15T17:14:00.002-07:002013-07-15T17:14:57.109-07:00Making sense of the (US) Farm Bill: an infographic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://awesome.good.is.s3.amazonaws.com/transparency/web/1206/farm-bill/flash.html">This</a> is without doubt the best explanation of the history, structure and impact of successive US Farm Bills that I have seen. Clear, accessible and powerful, this is a must-view for everyone concerned with the corporate food regime.<br />
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-40245270528878388082013-07-12T05:09:00.000-07:002013-07-12T05:09:09.834-07:00Mel's prime beef<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Mel's Prime Beef are eight three-minute clips on what is wrong with Ontario's food system. Episode 6 is typical -- it goes for the jugular in accessibly explaining how markets fail farmers and consumers. All eight are worth watching.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/yX1UywH9hzA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-25245956022135989812013-07-10T08:22:00.000-07:002013-07-10T08:23:38.788-07:00Africa from top to bottom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
An excellent infographic on the best and worst development performance in Africa:<br />
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<a href="http://www.master-of-finance.org/africa-economy/"><img alt="Africa From Top To Bottom" border="0" nbsp="" src="http://ig.master-of-finance.org/growth.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-49423483068152190992013-07-05T06:11:00.001-07:002013-07-05T06:11:29.112-07:00Global wealth inequality -- what you never knew you never knew<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From www.therules.org, an excellent brief overview of historical and contemporary global inequality.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uWSxzjyMNpU" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-19302318025445568472013-06-14T08:16:00.000-07:002013-07-05T06:13:21.847-07:00A world of 11 billion?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For years I have been telling students that the world population is going to peak at 10 billion around 2050. Last year, following revised estimates from the UN Population Division, I qualified this by saying that global population might not even reach 10 billion. Turns out I was wrong! The latest estimates of the UN Population Division were released yesterday, including a great interactive tool. The 'median variant' estimate of world population in 2100 is now 10,853,849. In other words, I am going to have to start telling my students that the world population is going to peak at 11 billion.
I can't pretend to understand the demographics behind this new estimate, but it will no doubt play into the hands of the doom-mongers who argue that the planet cannot support this population. In the United Kingdom, a one-man lecture/play recently ran at the Royal Court, a haven of experimental theatre, in which Stephen Emmott used statistics to argue that the world faces an "unprecedented planetary emergency". International development institutions feed into this narrative, arguing that world food production must increase by 100 per cent if we are going to feed the world in 2050, and that this means the further globalization of industrial agriculture. In Canada, the best-known neo-Malthusian is, without doubt, Thomas Homer-Dixon, who also argues that current population growth threatens to destroy the ecosystem, pollute the atmosphere, and change the climate.<br />
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So, now that my number is wrong, am I worried? The answer is yes, but not for the reasons that you might think. Let's start with the accuracy of the figures, given this recent revision. If the UN Population Division says that the population will peak at 11 billion, I believe them -- although it might be fewer. Why? Statistical demography is one of the most reliable quantitative tools in the social sciences. As Hans Rosling tweeted yesterday, in 1958 the Population Division estimated that by the year 2000 the global population would be 6.3 billion. In fact, the actual population was 6.12 billion. So, 42 years before the fact, the Population Division made an estimate that was only 3 per cent wrong. That's pretty impressive.<br />
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Next, what is most dramatic about global population growth today is the speed with which it is slowing down. To be precise: population is increasing, but the rate of growth of the rate of growth of the population is decreasing. In 1971 the global population rose by 2.1 per cent, the fastest single year in human history. However, 1971 was what one could call an 'inflection point': a 120 year population boom that started in 1850 came to an end, driven by the global expansion of capitalism and the need to create markets. The recurring crises of global capitalism that have been witnessed since the early 1970s have been mirrored in population, in that from 1971 on the rate of growth of global population has slowly come down. This morning I did a chart from the Population Division's estimates to demonstrate the decline, which I will use in IDST 1000Y next year:
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As the chart shows, the slope of the curve is getting shallower and shallower -- this is the result of the decline in the rate of population growth. This reflects unambiguous good news: better health and fewer deaths have reduced the need to have more children.
As Danny Dorling convincingly argues, we don't know for a fact why the rate of growth of population started to slow after 1971, but I would hypothesize that the dramatic expansion in reproductive health services around the world in the 1960s, which was driven by feminism and the women's movement, was a critical factor. Indeed, Hans Rosling tweeted yesterday a fact that has been remarkably overlooked in the world media today: that we have reached the point of the 'peak child'. What is the peak child? The world's population of children is currently estimated to be 1.9 billion. In around 15 years it will flatten out at 2 billion. Then it will start to decline, so that by 2100 there will be 1.9 billion children in the world. In other words, at the end of this century there will be no more children alive than are alive today. <br />
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This reflects one of my three principal concerns about the growth in global population: that as the global population ages the need to provide for people living a longer life will be borne by the decreasing share of working-age people in the world. In other words, a critical demographic issue will not be the number of people but rather increasing numbers of non-working citizens having to be supported by decreasing numbers of working citizens. Japan has gone through this process for 2 decades, and for 2 decades has been mired in economic stagnation.
Using the interactive tools of the Population Division it is possible to estimate when the planet's population will start to decline. However, even as populations decline there will be major changes in the structure of the planet's population. We have already passed the period in which the urban population has grown bigger than the rural population. We are indeed fortunate that we already produce enough food for 10 billion, and can feed a world of 11 billion agroecologically. However, a second change is of concern to me: and that is the shift in the structure of the planet's population towards Africa, the poorest continent. In 2030 Nigeria's population will exceed that of the United States, making it the third largest population in the world. The only continent where populations will continue to grow is Africa. In an era of more people not working, and fewer people working, Africa must become a critical source of workers for the global economy. My worry, then, is that politicians will continue to fail Africa, in terms of the education and healthcare needed for the sustainable human development upon which we will all rely.
This highlights my third concern. Global inequalities must be addressed if Africa is to have the sustainable human development that allows it to reap its 'demographic dividend' of having the highest proportion of the world's population that is of working age. There are a billion people today who simply consume too much. I am one of them, as most likely are the readers of this weblog. We must consume less, and in so doing individually and collectively address the global inequalities that currently limit the capabilities of generations to come and which, if not addressed, have the potential to make a world of 11 billion even more unjust that the world today.<br />
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-36812308603048867852013-06-11T10:35:00.000-07:002013-07-05T06:14:28.912-07:00Who is working within the corporate food regime?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Over the last few months I have heard several people that I respect -- both activists and academics -- claim that the sum total of employment in the food system, as an aggregated sector of economic activity, is very significant. Of course, this employment is not in farming -- the capital intensity of industrial agriculture under the corporate food regime in countries such as Canada means that the employment linkages from farming are low. Thus, in 2006, of an employed labour force of almost 17 million in Canada, only 2.2 per cent were directly working in agriculture. Rather, work in the corporate food regime is primarily in service-sector jobs: restaurants, bars and caterers; corner stores and supermarkets; and wholesale food trade.
This has a very interesting implication for those that are involved in the food movement: we will never know with any deal of accuracy how many people are employed in jobs related to the plethora of activities that are part and parcel of the corporate food regime. This is because the common categories used to assign individuals to labour market activities in both industrial and occupational censuses in the developed capitalist countries do not have the level of detail needed to construct such information.<br />
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For example, if Statistics Canada wanted to construct an aggregate measure of all those employed or having an occupation in Canada's food system, it is obvious that someone who has the occupation of 'chef' (occupational category G411 in Canada's 2006 census) would be assigned as working within the food system. However, someone working in the Human Resources department at Monsanto (occupational category B021 in Canada's 2006 census) works in human resources, and not the food system, according to Statistics Canada, and at the level of aggregation used by Statistics Canada could not be separated from someone working in the Human Resources department of a financial institution. The same would apply in other developed capitalist countries. Similarly, employment in specialty food stores (industrial category 4452 in Canada's 2006 census) could be captured as work within the food system, but someone who is employed within a university (industrial category 6113 in Canada's 2006 census) and teaches food studies could not be separated from someone teaching astrophysics and thus could not be counted as working in the food system.
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This is not simply an arcane matter of definition. For local, regional, national and international food movements to unite, it is important that the food system be seen as a livelihood issue, rather than simply an issue for 'consumers' or 'producers'. In order to be seen as a livelihood issue, it would certainly be helpful to know how many people's livelihoods depended upon the food system. Citizens and farmers are connected because both need to be able to construct viable (and meaningful) livelihoods in order to take part in the food system -- and yet the food movement will not be in a position to conclusively demonstrate the extent to which livelihoods in global, national and local economies depend upon the food system.<br />
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What can be said, however, is that the extremely ambiguous statistics that we do have substantiate the proposition that the food system is a significant source of livelihoods. For example, aggregating industrial classifications in the 2006 Canadian census that can be directly linked to the food system demonstrates that 13.8 per cent of all Canadians were employed in a food system-related activity. It can also be unambiguously stated that this is a dramatic understatement of the actual numbers of those whose livelihoods depend upon the food system in Canada: it does not include educators, researchers, government civil servants, financiers or hauliers, among others, who might be employed in a food system-related activity. It is also significant that many of those that can be counted as working within the food system are not unionized, while many of those that cannot be counted but are in fact working within the food system are unionized. The implication is very clear: as a livelihood issue, the character of the corporate food regime must become a central concern for the labour movement.
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Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-85946621257001753282013-05-13T06:11:00.000-07:002013-05-13T06:11:15.912-07:00Rubber barons and land grabbing in Southeast AsiaGlobal Witness has produced an excellent report on collusion between Vietnamese state-owned enterprises, local government officials and Deutsche Bank in grabbing land in Laos and Cambodia in order to expand rubber plantations, to meet growing worldwide demand for rubber. Watch the summary:
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<br /></div>Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-776166781715323807.post-1926701749541371692013-05-06T05:43:00.001-07:002013-05-06T05:43:44.328-07:00How to feed a growing worldAn exciting round-table (that is more than an hour long, but worth it) with activist and best-selling author Raj Patel (<i>Stuffed and Starved</i>, <i>Food Rebellions</i>, and <i>The Value of Nothing</i>), geneticist Molly Jahn (former USDA Deputy Under Secretary and University of Madison-Wisconsin professor), and award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson (owner of Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem, author, and UNICEF Ambassador)to dispel myths about population growth and food security.
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<br /></div>Haroonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06091268939046248040noreply@blogger.com2