Peasant Wars

Cambridge University Press eBooks, pp. 19–40

Abstract

This chapter reveals the history of agrarian change in the Gulf, the social relations of farming and the struggles over land and water. It will show how the demise of the peasant existence was not linear, but rather that the management of the region’s agriculture was deeply political. This history is relevant to the central points of this book. The Gulf’s dependence on food imports, its adoption of international brands and methods, and acquisition of agricultural land outside of the country were predicated on the internal demise of this food system. These processes are the antithesis of the food sovereignty that is embodied in peasant production; they represent the manner in which the ruling class wrested control of food and agriculture, integrating it into their circuits of accumulation, and governed it to legitimise their rule.

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