Racial capitalism and women’s horticultural labour in Senegal: neo-housewifisation and the micro-politics of paternalism

The social reproduction of agrarian change: Feminist political economy and rural transformations in the global south. An introduction

“…A growing set of studies grappling with 'decolonising' and decentring social reproduction approaches by focusing on the Global South and/or informal work have also focused on agrarian systems (e.g., Baglioni, 2022;Cousins et al, 2018;Fernandez, 2018;Hornby & Cousins, 2019;Rao & Ramnarain, 2023;Stevano, 2019). Others have highlighted the embeddedness of agrarian labour regimes in 'reproduction zones' (e.g., Pattenden, 2018) or, more recently, their interconnections with varied forms of racial capitalism (Dieng, 2024). Yet, overall, more work is needed to systematically place social reproduction theorisations in conversation with studies analysing capitalist development, as well as forms of resistance to it, within agrarian settings of the Global South.…”

“…Secondly, the study of 'the agrarian' further confirms the key relevance of the household as a key unit of reproductive governance of capitalism (see O'Rourke & Gleeson, 2021). Yet, it also shows the compelling need to further unpack its varied gendered trajectories, including the contemporary transformations of the 'domestic' and its articulations with novel forms of gendered and racialised cheapened labour, shaping contemporary iterations of 'housewifization' regenerating precarious living in today's global economy (Dieng, 2024;Joshi, 2020;Mezzadri, 2022). In addition, it is all the more evident that households are not sufficient units of analysis and/or sites of social reproduction for rural life.…”