At Crossroads? Covid-19, State and The Peasantry: The Zimbabwean Case

On 30 March 2020 Zimbabwe, a country of 14.3 million people, the government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by imposing a mandatory lockdown for 21 days. This mandatory lockdown movement was only restricted to essential service providers; health care, security services and agriculture were designated as part of the essential services. Two days later the…

August 13, 2020

What do you mean ‘we’? Activists, academics and NGOs in civil society coalitions

Join PLAAS for a webinar on “What do you mean ‘we’? Activists, academics and NGOs in civil society coalitions”. Many activists have argued that the crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic also presents an important opportunity for change, and that now is the time that movements of poor and marginalised people, progressive activists, and critical social theorists…

August 1, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic and complex effects on farmers and food-supply chains: an early dispatch from India.

R. Venkat Ramanujam and Amit John Kurien Agriculture’s contribution to the Indian economy is critical and complex. It contributes 16% of India’s GDP but supports between 50-60% of the labour force and up to 70% of all rural households (see a quick overview here). Livelihoods in agriculture have been stressed for some time now due…

June 3, 2020

Rural public health systems and accountability politics: insights from grassroots health rights defenders in Guatemala

Abstract: As the pandemic reveals how multiple intersecting inequalities affect public health, the work of rural activists defending their communities’ rights to health, land, and gender, ethnic and environmental justice demonstrate how intersectional analysis can be put into practice. In the interviews that follow, Guatemalan Maya Tz’utujil activists Paulina Culum and Benilda Batzin describe how…