Syllabus

PNS0236 Critical perspectives on agrarian change, 7.5 Credits

Subjects

Education cycle

Grading scale

Language

Prior knowledge

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, the student should:

• be well acquainted with the major theoretical approaches for understanding agrarian change, including classical political economy approaches and the recent ‘more than human’ turn in critical agrarian studies;

• acquire a detailed understanding of the drivers of agrarian change in the era of industrialization/modernization and how these drivers have played out in different times and places;

• be able to connect theories of agrarian change to other important trends/debates, including food security, the green revolution, and environmental degradation/climate change.

Content

This PhD course aims to give PhD students an overview of critical agrarian studies, focusing on both historical and contemporary agrarian change. The main focus is understanding key conceptualizations of agrarian change and its drivers, y from the era of agricultural modernization and industrialization, beginning in the mid-1800s, through the current restructuring of agro-food systems around the world. Hence, this course will deal with varied transformations in different time periods and places in the Global South and North (building on both teachers’ and students’ familiarity with cases), and theoretical debates about the significance of these transformations, tracing how discussions in agrarian political economy have evolved over the last (roughly) 150 years. This course is conceived primarily as a theoretical course, helping participating PhD students to comprehend concepts both within agrarian political economy – such as primitive accumulation, agricultural production and labor relations, food regimes, food sovereignty and financialization – and from the recent "more than human" turn in agrarian studies.

To ensure that the participants become acquainted with the major theoretical approaches for understanding agrarian change, including classical political economy approaches and the recent ‘more than human’ turn in critical agrarian studies, acquire a detailed understanding of the drivers of agrarian change and learn to connect theories of agrarian change to other important trends/debates, the course is divided into for overarching themes. Each theme will involve reading, a lecture and a full day seminar. During the seminar students will be allotted specific texts in the reading list to present in more detail to the peer students as a way of introducing and leading the discussion.

Additional information

Responsible department

Department of Urban and Rural Development