TY - JOUR
T1 - Experiencing primitive accumulation as alienation
T2 - mangrove forest privatization, enclosures and the everyday adaptation of bodies to capital in rural Senegal
AU - Hiraldo, Rocio
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - This paper examines primitive accumulation by studying changes in fishermen and mollusc collectors' labour before and after the privatization of 1,800 hectares of mangrove forest in rural Senegal through the creation of a tourism‐oriented protected area. Locating this privatization within a broader context of capital's enclosures, the paper shows a process of depeasantization, labour intensification (via the multiplication of petty commodity production activities and proletarianization) and changing socioecological relations. This is a process where enclosures continuously alienate workers by separating them not necessarily from the land, but, more generally, from the conditions of their labour even when these are already commodified. As workers cope with alienation, they encounter it anew, contributing to capital's survival through their search for money and other commodities (i.e., means of production and subsistence). Workers' everyday adaptations to capital, and hence alienation, need to become central in future research on primitive accumulation and agrarian change.
AB - This paper examines primitive accumulation by studying changes in fishermen and mollusc collectors' labour before and after the privatization of 1,800 hectares of mangrove forest in rural Senegal through the creation of a tourism‐oriented protected area. Locating this privatization within a broader context of capital's enclosures, the paper shows a process of depeasantization, labour intensification (via the multiplication of petty commodity production activities and proletarianization) and changing socioecological relations. This is a process where enclosures continuously alienate workers by separating them not necessarily from the land, but, more generally, from the conditions of their labour even when these are already commodified. As workers cope with alienation, they encounter it anew, contributing to capital's survival through their search for money and other commodities (i.e., means of production and subsistence). Workers' everyday adaptations to capital, and hence alienation, need to become central in future research on primitive accumulation and agrarian change.
KW - accumulation by dispossession
KW - alienation
KW - enclosures
KW - primitive accumulation
KW - Senegal
U2 - 10.1111/joac.12247
DO - 10.1111/joac.12247
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1471-0358
VL - 18
SP - 517
EP - 535
JO - Journal of Agrarian Change
JF - Journal of Agrarian Change
IS - 3
ER -
