Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies

Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution ― as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism ― the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants.

The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people ― in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation ― are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world.

The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial.

The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Peasant Studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003467960/climate-change-critical-agrarian-studies-ian-scoones-saturnino-borras-jr-amita-baviskar-marc-edelman-nancy-lee-peluso-wendy-wolford, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. A version of the open access title is also available on the OAPEN platform https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/85297 .

Ian Scoones is Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton UK. He is an agricultural ecologist by original training but today works on questions of policy around land, agriculture, and agrarian change, mostly in Africa. He is the principal investigator of the ERC-funded PASTRES programme (http: //pastres.org).

Saturnino M. Borras Jr. is Professor of Agrarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Nedtherlands; Distinguished Professor at China Agricultural University, Beijing, and Associate of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute.

Amita Baviskar is Dean, Faculty and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University, Sonipat, India. Her research and teaching address the cultural politics of environment and development in rural and urban India. She focuses on the role of social inequality and identities in natural resource conflicts.

Marc Edelman is Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, USA. His latest book is Peasant Politics of the Twenty-first Century: Transnational Social Movements and Agrarian Change (2024).

Nancy Lee Peluso is Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and Chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Wendy Wolford is Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development in the Department of Global Development, and Vice Provost for International Affairs, Cornell University, Ithica, USA. Her research includes work on international development, land use and distribution, social mobilization, agrarian societies, and critical ethnography.