625
Views
2
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles / Articles

Migration, crop diversification, and adverse incorporation: understanding the repertoire of contention in rural Tajikistan

ORCID Icon
Pages 499-518 | Received 04 May 2019, Accepted 05 Apr 2020, Published online: 30 Nov 2021

ABSTRACT

Post-socialist Tajikistan has experienced ongoing agrarian reforms since the 1990s. In this paper, I firstly characterise recent agrarian political economic dynamics in the country and address domestic elites’ tenacious control over the rural economy, which signifies “control grabbing” (and with which the countryside retains feudal features). I then turn to Chinese farmland investments in Tajikistan’s southwestern region. Secondly, I analyse forms of contention and argue that these are shaped by: (a) legacies of the civil war and deepening authoritarianism; (b) migration; and (c) agricultural labour relations and rural marginalisation. Finally, I contend that Chinese investors benefit from, rather than drive, dispossession.

RÉSUMÉ

Le Tadjikistan post-socialiste a connu des réformes agraires continues depuis les années 1990. Dans cet article, je décris d’abord les dynamiques récentes de l’économie politique agraire dans le pays et j’aborde la question du contrôle tenace exercé par les élites nationales sur l’économie rurale, caractérisé par « l’accaparement du contrôle » (et en raison duquel les régions rurales ont conservé certains aspects féodaux). Je me concentre ensuite sur les investissements chinois dans les terres agricoles de la région du sud-ouest du Tadjikistan. Deuxièmement, j’analyse les formes de conflits et soutiens qu’elles sont influencées par: (a) les héritages de la guerre civile et le renforcement de l’autoritarisme ; et (b) la migration; et (c) les relations de travail dans le domaine agricole et la marginalisation rurale. Enfin, je soutiens que les investisseurs chinois bénéficient de la dépossession, sans toutefois la causer.

Introduction

In any particular agrarian order there is likely to be a similar moral consensus among tenants. Some balance between what tenants provide in goods and services to landlords and what they receive in return will be seen as reasonable and any substantial departure from that norm in the landlord’s favour will appear exploitative. (Scott Citation1976, 165)

Peasant wars (cf. Wolf Citation1969) and peasant resistanceFootnote1 (cf. Scott Citation1985) have received a lot of attention in critical agrarian studies in the past decades, and they have regained special attention with the “global land grab” that has been observed since 2008. As “land grabbing” was assumed to dispossess rural communities of land, it was widely expected that rural communities around the world would resist foreign and domestic “land grabs” (for a critique see Mamonova Citation2015; Hall et al. Citation2015).

In critical agrarian studies, Central Asia has remained under-explored. However, there have been major changes in land tenure in the region which make it a rich area of study. Patterns of concentration and fragmentation of land and rural wealth have occurred alongside each other, and the region’s economies have opened up to the world market with significant implications for rural livelihoods.

In this paper, I focus on post-socialist, post-conflict Tajikistan. One aspect that calls for examination is the fact that Tajik cotton farmers and field labourers are entangled in a “chain of exploitation” (cf. Luna Citation2019). Another dynamic worth paying attention to is the entrance of Chinese agribusinesses in Tajikistan. The question is how rural dwellers respond to these phenomena. I pose the question: “How and to what extent does Tajik rural society react to the joint dynamic of pre-existing concentrations of land and wealth, and Chinese farmland investments in the country?”

It is often stated that civic movements are near absent in Central Asia and the former Soviet realm at large (cf. Mamonova and Visser Citation2014; Mamonova Citation2015 for a critique). Explanations for the dearth of civic movements are often related to the Soviet legacy and the fact that most of the republics in the Central Asian region are ruled by authoritarian regimes. My question merits particular attention since there were conflicts over land in Tajikistan in the 1980s (Nourzhanov and Bleuer Citation2013). Few insights exist into the way Tajik rural society acts today when exposed to domestic and foreign “control grabs,” and how people respond to the highly exploitative relations of production in the rural economy.

I analyse forms of contention and argue that, firstly, both farmers and farm labourers have remained remarkably silent with regard to inequality and rural hardship, as opposed to, for instance, farmers in Burkina Faso who protested low cotton procurement prices in the early 2010s (Luna Citation2019). Secondly, I note that Tajik rural society did not embark on protests when Chinese agribusinesses acquired farmland in 2012 (nor in later years, when more Chinese farmland investments materialised). In this regard, responses in Tajikistan contrast with those in Kazakhstan, where public anti-Chinese protests have frequently taken place in the past few years (BBC Citation2016).

I observe two axes of (potential) political conflict: between rural dwellers, domestic elites and the Tajik state; and between rural dwellers and the Chinese agribusinesses. I build on seminal works regarding social movements and peasant resistance (cf. Scott Citation1976, Citation1985; Tilly Citation2006) and relate rural dwellers’ responses to Hirschman’s (Citation1970) “exit, voice, and loyalty.” I explain the repertoire of contention by discussing three aspects: (a) Tajikistan’s post-conflict status and deepening authoritarianism; (b) the absence of a potentially rebellious segment of the population, namely young men; and (c) the specific terms of farmers’ and rural households’ inclusion in the rural (cotton) economy and the Chinese farmland investments.

I argue that one cannot understand the repertoire of contention in Tajikistan without due attention to post-conflict power configurations. Here I follow Lubkemann (Citation2008, 252), who argued that “it is vital for anthropologists who work in warscapes to trace the development of social processes throughout and beyond the course of the conflict, rather than treating war as a temporary interruption in the ‘normal’ flow of these processes.” However, even before the civil war, such as in the 1980s, “freedom of speech and freedom of association never really took off in Tajikistan” (Nourzhanov and Bleuer Citation2013, 178), as opposed to developments in some other Soviet republics. While there were some social and political movements in Tajikistan in the late 1980s, these movements were primarily urban-based. Some were driven by rural residents but there were no links to the farming population.

Today the political landscape of Tajikistan includes an agrarian political party (Hizbi Agrarii Tojikiston), but it has neither meaningful influence nor support. The role of the National Association of Dehqon Farms (Assotsiatsiyai Millii Khojagihoi Dehqonii (Fermerii) Tojikiston) is also limited, as it has been encapsulated in the Ministry of Agriculture, and while there are several domestic NGOs active in Tajikistan, most of them are externally funded, with the implication that some initiatives are only short-lived.

I argue that “exit” is a primary response to hardship and oppression in rural Tajikistan, even though rural dwellers’ coping strategies and acts of resistance are sometimes entangled and difficult to “unknot.” This exit strategy, of primarily (young) men, also helps to understand why protests within Tajikistan remain limited. Furthermore, I argue that Chinese agricultural enterprises in fact benefit from, and do not propel, dispossession. Lastly, I note that many rural dwellers are not excluded from the agrarian economy in its entirety but are rather adversely incorporated (cf. Hickey and du Toit Citation2007).

This paper is built on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in the spring and summer periods of 2012 and 2013, and the winter of 2014–2015, and short periods of fieldwork in the spring and summer of 2019 and the spring of 2020. During these periods I stayed in two villages in Tajikistan’s southwestern Khatlon region during different times of the year, and intermittently visited other rural localities of the country. I observed daily land use practices and the rhythm of the day, and held semi-structured interviews and numerous conversations with a variety of dehqon farmers (the dehqon farm is the commercially-oriented farm that has been established on former kolkhoz or sovkhoz land) and rural dwellers, as well as with governmental officials at the local, district, regional and national levels. Note that conducting research on politicised themes is challenging in Tajikistan. As a consequence, surveying (and quantifying) public opinion is problematic.

After this introduction, the next (second) section elaborates on the theoretical framework of this paper. In the third section, I discuss Tajikistan’s deepening authoritarian regime, the legacy of the Tajik Civil War (1992–1997), and the agrarian political economy. This is followed by the fourth section in which I address the two main political economic dynamics shaping access to land and farm production. In the fifth section, I discuss the observed repertoire of contention. The final sixth section offers a conclusion.

Understanding social and peasant movements: responses and repertoires

Social movements and revolution have been at the core of many studies in political sciences and sociology (cf. Tilly Citation2006; Tarrow Citation1998; Hall et al. Citation2015). The seminal works on social movements, peasant resistance and revolt (Wolf Citation1969; Scott Citation1985; Kerkvliet Citation2009) are still of relevance today, in a world in which neoliberal capitalism propels ongoing accumulation by dispossession (Harvey Citation2003), control and land grabbing (White et al. Citation2012; Hall et al. Citation2015), and the extraction of rural wealth in general.

Tilly (Citation2006) distinguished three repertoires of contention that are contingent on regime characteristics: collective violence, revolution, and social movements. As Tilly (Citation2006) explained, repertoires of contention are conditioned by regime characteristics, and also depend on the characteristics of society. “Any regime […] creates a specific environment of political opportunities and threats to which makers of claims necessarily respond” (Tilly Citation2006, 43–44). Forms of civic action depend on the “social class of the actors” (Tilly Citation2006, 50) and “the social organization and routine politics of their settings” (Tilly Citation2006, 51, emphasis added). “Each stratification system generates its own myth or rationale to explain why some should be exalted above others” (Scott Citation1976, 180).

Hirschman (Citation1970) identified three ways in which people respond to inadequate services provided by companies, organisations and states: exit, voice, and loyalty. Under domination, forms of resistance and expressions of discontent may remain rather concealed (cf. O'Brien Citation1996). Expressions of contention, such as voice, depend on, as Scott (Citation1990, 137) stated, “the capacity of powerholders to severely punish open resistance.”

The expression of “exit,” or flight, as a manifestation of discontent, may be considered where acquiescence to oppression seems the least desired option, and where publicly voicing discontent can have serious repercussions. According to Asiwaju (Citation1976), “protest migrations” were an important way in which groups in several African countries expressed their resentment toward European colonial rulers. Isaacman (Citation1996) described the flight of Mozambican peasants, who attempted to escape from forced cotton labour under colonial rule. This rural exodus was a mode of raiding the economy (Scott Citation1976), as it challenged rulers: How to continue extracting wealth from the countryside without the necessary labour force?

Manifestations of “voice” (cf. Hirschman Citation1970) receive much, if not most, attention in academic literature on rural politics, with a specific focus on the ability and willingness of rural dwellers and land and environment defenders to either speak up, or to secretly resist oppression and inequality (cf. Kerkvliet Citation2009; Scott Citation1976). Broadly defined, there are different ways in which peasants “voice” their anxiety besides engaging in “official” politics: (a) everyday forms of peasant resistance; (b) unorganised rural movements; and (c) organised peasant rebellion (Lichbach Citation1994). However, according to Scott (Citation1976, 12), “rebellion is not the characteristic expression of peasant politics.” Peasants evaluate “claims to the surplus” (Scott Citation1976, 7) against their subsistence ethic and may remain loyal if survival is not threatened. Peasants often also tend to be seen as socially and/or geographically isolated. However, the transnational movement La Via Campesina, which tries to support rural communities around the world, has a relatively large outreach nowadays, but the movement has thus far not become involved in “peasant politics” in the former Soviet republics (cf. Mamonova and Visser Citation2014).

O'Brien (Citation1996) observed another form of resistance in the context of rural China, which he conceptualised as “rightful resistance.” Rightful resistance takes the form of petitioning and complaint letters. Rightful resisters address agents of the state to correct unlawful acts by officials lower in the hierarchy (O'Brien Citation1996). However, not every context has a window of opportunity to resist rightfully. Moreover, without rule of law, without knowledge of regulations, or without belief in law, the oppressed might not notice legal wrongdoings, might face obstacles to access the judiciary and seeking redress in general, or deem it meaningless. As O'Brien (Citation1996, 34) noted, “[r]ightful resistance is […] a product of state building and of opportunities created by the spread of participatory ideologies and patterns of rule rooted in notions of equality, rights, and rule of law.”

As a result, rural dwellers’ responses and perceptions of inequality depend on multiple factors. We have to look at the historical, social and political context and the way in which rural dwellers are incorporated in the political economy, to understand the absence or presence of resistance and discontent (cf. Mamonova Citation2015).

Deepening authoritarianism in Tajikistan and the legacy of the civil war

Tajikistan has had a difficult path of post-socialist transformation since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Frictions between the country’s different regions were already looming in the late 1980s (Nourzhanov and Bleuer Citation2013) and shortly after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, competing claims to power and social mobilisation resulted in a civil war. Ethnic cleansing and massacres predominantly took place in the capital city of Dushanbe and in the southwestern Khatlon region. A lot of people fled (temporarily or permanently) and many people lost their lives. In 1997 a peace agreement was signed, with the assistance of the international community.

As part of the peace agreement, the then-opposition was given 30 per cent of the government positions. However, over the past decades, opposition has been marginalised. A number of opposition parties formally partake in parliament and elections, but their actual role is questionable, such as the agrarian political party, mentioned earlier. In 2015 the last opposition party of any significance (the Islamic Renaissance Party, Hizbi Nahzati Islomii Tojikiston) was banned. The shrinking of political space has made many people politically apathetic. The government stringently controls Tajik society in various ways. Opposition is often harassed, even overseas. The judiciary system is biased, and court cases take place behind closed doors.

The Tajik authorities’ actions are ad hoc rather than institutional, and may be described as a continuous effort to uproot any signs of potential resistance, destroy any space for public mobilization, and retain control of all opportunities for significant wealth creation. (Heathershaw and Mullojonov Citation2018, 54)

As a result, Tajikistan’s political structure is effectively a one-party system. The country’s ruling regime has controlled power seats since the early 1990s from the top to the local levels, and authoritarian rule is deepening (Lemon Citation2018; Heathershaw and Mullojonov Citation2018). Since the civil war, particularly in war-torn villages, the distance between society and agents of the state has grown.

President Emomali Rahmon presents himself as the one who brought peace to the country, and in 2015 the parliament voted to change the constitution (as did the electorate in 2016) and Rahmon's term limits were removed and he officially gained the title “founder of peace and national unity – leader of the nation (Asosguzori sulhu vahdati milli – Peshvoi millat).” Importantly, the inner-circle of the regime has captured the primary economic resources and sectors, of which cotton is one. As a result, it is difficult, if not impossible, to untangle political from economic power.

The main political economic dynamics in rural Tajikistan: exploitation in the rural economy and Chinese land investments

Rural extractivism and land concentration in southwest lowland Tajikistan

The merging of political and economic power is clearly experienced in the agrarian economy, where regime insiders have (directly and indirectly) captured control over land and farm assets. In the process of post-socialist land reform rural dwellers have increasingly gained access to arable and pasture land. However, in many cases, the control over meaningful agricultural revenue streams has been or has remained monopolised, and land distribution has been skewed. In other words, post-war control (in particular over the southwestern region) has resulted in unequal distribution of rural wealth. Competition for land and water resources was not the cause of the civil war, but rural wealth became part of the power play in the course of the conflict.

Only around six per cent of Tajikistan’s area is arable land (UNDP Citation2012). Nevertheless, the agrarian sector contributes around 20 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and around 50 per cent of the country’s formal workforce is employed in the agrarian economy (World Bank Citation2016). However, around 30 per cent of the population was undernourished in 2016 (Kawabata et al. Citation2020) and the poverty rate was just over 25 per cent in 2019, with the highest poverty rate in Tajikistan's primary agricultural region, Khatlon (World Bank Citation2020). It is commonly assumed that poverty is caused by the country’s lack of decent employment, good education, and degraded land and water resources. However, the fact that poverty was highest in the relatively arable-land rich Khatlon region in 2019, where poverty reduction has stagnated, suggests that poverty is highly related to the agrarian political economy.

Pakhta boigarii davlat ast

“Cotton is the state’s wealth.” This saying has been an important mechanism of power, propagated as a kind of “common sense” (cf. Gramsci [Citation1971] Citation1999) to legitimise the continued prioritisation of cotton. Tajikistan’s agrarian policies are based on the political economy of cotton. Tajikistan was the Soviet Union’s third cotton producer, and cotton has remained important to the post-socialist state. In the past decades, cotton has continued to be the primary agricultural commodity, and cotton fibres represented around 10 per cent of Tajikistan’s total exports in 2017 (TajStat Citation2018).

Owing to the importance of cotton, the crop has been a strong determinant in the pathway of agrarian reform in post-socialist Tajikistan. As I have described earlier (Hofman Citation2018), domestic elites – such as the president’s brother in law and another wealthy former bureaucrat – came to dominate the cotton sector in Tajikistan through their involvement in the so-called “futures system.”

The futures system was established when, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund in 1996, the state was forced to withdraw its support from the agricultural sector. Because the state feared the demise of cotton revenues, it transformed the planned economy: instead of state procurement, so-called “futures companies” were granted the privilege of buying up cotton. In the futures system, the future (i.e. anticipated) cotton price served as collateral for cotton-tied prepayments to farmers. As a quasi-planned economy, the futures system was actually not more than a continuation of the Soviet-era state procurement system, with the difference that it was controlled by a handful of powerful private actors. Worded differently, the privatisation of the cotton economy, propelled by international donors, primarily empowered domestic elites (Hofman Citation2018; Van Atta Citation2009). As cotton producing farms and the rural population did not benefit at all from cotton production, the war, in tandem with the restructuring of the agrarian economy, had serious implications for agricultural development and rural wellbeing.Footnote2

Over the years the futures system functioned inadequately. This was due not only to technical aspects related to farming, but in fact more because of systemic fraud. The futures system enabled elites to extract wealth by inflating farm input prices and suppressing cotton farm gate prices. As a result, cotton producing farmers accumulated debt, which tied them to the land and compelled them to produce cotton. Many cotton-growing farms were only independent in name (Hofman Citation2018). In this way, the countryside (re)gained feudal features, in which debt was a key mechanism to sustaining the cotton economy.

Notably, the emergence and perseverance of debt was repeatedly questioned by policy analysts. Only a string of crises between 2007 and 2009 enabled international donors to demand more meaningful changes to the agrarian economy. Eventually, the government adopted a “Road Map,” which included the nullification of cotton debt (Hofman Citation2018) and gave farmers full decision-making power over their land and labour. This should have marked an important change in the agrarian order. However, the changes were less significant than expected. In most, if not all, localities in southwest Tajikistan local authorities still stipulate cropping patterns, and cotton remains the primary crop in cropping plans.

At the same time, and even more importantly, in some localities in southwest Tajikistan, cotton debt has not been nullified. In those contexts, particular strongmen (cf. Hofman Citation2018) uphold an “agrarian order” by preserving debt (see also Boboyorov Citation2013). For them, debt has remained an ultimate tool to secure the production of cotton.

The commodity specific nature of cotton in this dynamic merits further attention. Globally, throughout history cotton has been associated with power inequality, dependency, forced labour and slavery (cf. Bassett Citation2001; Isaacman Citation1996). An intensification of cotton production is only possible at the expense of food crops, and tends to be achieved through force or financial incentives. It is force that has continued in the Tajik countryside. The command economy that marked the Tajik countryside for over 60 years under Soviet rule has continued in a disguised form.

Through the futures system Tajik farmers were entangled in a chain of dependencies, related to the procurement, processing and marketing of cotton, and for many farmers these dependencies continue. After cotton picking, raw cotton should leave the field relatively quickly in order to limit its moisture content. Most farmers sell cotton directly at the nearest gin (sometimes they are forced to do so) and are unable to speculate its economic value.

Although the entire Tajik cotton economy has to compete with cotton producers elsewhere in the world, who have mechanised and chemicalised production and who enjoy significant subsidies (such as farmers in the United States), with which they put downward pressure on the global cotton market, Tajik elites, through the power of monopsony, pass on the bulk of pressure to farmers. Today over 120 private ginneries operate in the country, but the farm gate prices they offer hardly differ. One explanation is that a select number of elites still act as cotton export gatekeepers; liberalisation of the cotton sector is questionable (cf. Ashurov Citation2019). Against this background, answers to the key questions in agrarian political economy – “who owns what; who does what; who gets what; what do they do with it?” (cf. Bernstein Citation2010) – are that regime insiders control the cotton economy, while the rural population cultivates the farm fields. The cotton revenues are appropriated by elites for private gains and placed in foreign bank accounts.

As a result, deep inequality and systematic marginalisation continue to hinder rural development. Production relations in the cotton sector tend to display feudal features, but also the breeding of silk worms (for silk production) exhibits such features. Akin to production plans of crops, in most lowland localities silk worm breeding is still enforced through state quota and distributed among mulberry tree-owning farmers, who try to transfer this labourious task to their farm shareholders, or other (poorer) village inhabitants, forming a “chain of exploitation” (cf. Luna Citation2019).

While horticulture production has increased over the past years, particularly by farmers enjoying more autonomy, the horticulture sector also features “chains of exploitation,” with female casual labourers positioned in the lowest rank of the hierarchy. Farm gate prices of food crops are much higher than cotton, but many farmers do not enjoy the freedom and/or ability to grow and market a large variety of food crops, and face difficulties negotiating with middlemen. The problems are also related to the fact that the development in horticulture (value chains and post-harvest infrastructure) has long been neglected. Hence food security and the development of viable rural livelihoods have been thwarted by the state’s prioritisation of cotton. It is striking that poverty has been most severe in the lowland Khatlon region in recent years, as noted before; more severe than in the highland region Gorno Badakhshan (World Bank Citation2020) where arable land and employment opportunities are scarce.

In some cases, the difficulties in farming drive farmers to return their land use rights to authorities. In such a situation, or when authorities deem land use practices “irrational” and revoke farmers’ land use rights, vacant farm fields are allocated to or taken over by others, such as elites. Importantly, leaving land fallow for more than two consecutive years can also mean a loss of land use rights.Footnote3

Ultimately, the authorities have the power to decide who can use farmland, and in which way. Well-connected elites can influence land use distribution, which has resulted in an agrarian landscape which exhibits deepening inequality. Over the course of agrarian transformation in Tajikistan, a small number of elites have taken control over large tracts of land, and Chinese agribusinesses have now joined the ranks.

The elites’ farms (politically affiliated, or with blood ties to political affiliates) have profited from access to capital, assets and human capital, as well as straightforward access to up and downstream markets, particularly as some elites completely took over state-owned (research) farms in previous years (Hofman and Visser Citation2021). However, political infighting takes place over land, and in recent years some large farm enterprises have been declared bankrupt. According to local voices the bankruptcy of farms of one elite was politically motived as the elite owner was increasingly perceived as a threat to the regime; he had built relationships with Chinese investors and has locally been seen as a charismatic patron, despite scandals he was involved in, in earlier years.

Chinese land investments

The arrival of Chinese farm enterprises represents a second dynamic that has been witnessed in the Tajik countryside since 2012. Little was known about the Chinese agribusinesses when the first investment was pledged (Hofman Citation2016b). Notably, just before this first farmland investment was announced, the Tajik government had handed over a substantial amount of land, in the eastern part of the country, to the Chinese government (cf. Hofman Citation2016b). People expressed concern about the growing presence of Chinese agribusinesses, which primarily have been operating in the southwestern Khatlon province. During a visit to a local NGO based in that province in 2012, one of the NGO’s staff members said: “After 50 years, Khatlon will be Chinese” (interview 2 August 2012). Many people also raised their eyebrows, particularly since a significant part of Tajikistan’s work force is overseas, working in Russia. The anxiety thus triggered was rightly captured in a Tajik newspaper in 2012, as Faromarzi (Citation2012) questioned: “Tajiks to Russia, Chinese to Tajikistan?” In conversations in 2012 in the countryside, people posed exactly the same question.

However, there was no public outcry, as opposed to what has been seen in Kazakhstan in recent years, and over time people have increasingly started working for the Chinese farm enterprises, despite concerns. For some male rural dwellers, working for Chinese farm enterprises provides them with an alternative to labour migration; for women, the wages tend to be (slightly) higher than what they can earn when working for local farmers.

The first investment that was announced in 2011 (Hofman Citation2016a, Citation2016b), materialised in 2012. Chinese agribusinesses (and foreigners in general) can acquire land use rights (leasehold) for a period of 49 years in Tajikistan, when it concerns land labelled as “abandoned” (Hofman Citation2016b). However, Chinese agribusinesses also access land through other forms of tenure. The largest Chinese agribusinesses currently operating in Tajikistan partner with national level elites,Footnote4 and in addition to reinvigorating abandoned land, cultivate land in hands of these and other elites, paying high fees. I have not observed that Chinese agribusinesses propelled massive dispossession. Instead, Chinese companies benefit from elites' earlier appropriation and accumulation of rural wealth. Only in a few instances have the Chinese companies been renting land from smaller dehqon farms, often for durations of a few years. However, in some instances this has involved coercion, where local authorities have pressured to rent out their land.

The fact that Chinese companies mainly rent land from national-level elites is important, particularly given the fact that foreign “land grabs” tend to be associated with rural dwellers’ loss of land (cf. Hall et al. Citation2015). Rather, domestic “land grabs,” and general land politics prevent Tajik rural dwellers from profiting from farming. This is different for Chinese or well-connected elites, who can farm under different terms (cf. Hofman Citation2018) and may also explain why I often recorded people lamenting the political economy, rather than (only) the presence of Chinese farm enterprises. Domestic “land grabs” and “control grabbing” (cf. White et al. Citation2012) are longer term phenomena in Tajikistan’s agrarian economy. Post-war rulers have extracted wealth through capturing control of the most profitable revenue streams, at the expense of the rural population, and the environment.

Responses “from below”

How does Tajikistan’s rural society respond to the joint dynamic of (indirect) dispossession and marginalisation? In the context of deepening authoritarianism and the legacy of the Tajik Civil War, one should question, following Scott (Citation1976, 227): “How are we to gauge the potential for rebellion in the absence of the possibility to act?”

[…] one may claim that the peasantry, because of its religious or social ideology, accepts this exploitation as a normal, even justifiable, part of the social order. This explanation for the absence of revolt […] assumes a fatalistic acceptance […]. One may claim, on the other hand, that the explanation for passivity is not to be found in peasant values, but rather in the relationships of force in the countryside. (Scott Citation1976, 227)

I cluster the responses under the rubrics of “exit, voice, and loyalty” (cf. Hirschman Citation1970).

Exit: migration

I argue that “exit” is the primary response to hardship in rural Tajikistan. While migration from Tajikistan, or rather flight, was initially induced by the Tajik Civil War (1992–1997), today migration is primarily a result of the lack of meaningful domestic employment opportunities. As a young village inhabitant told me: “From farming you can only buy cigarettes” (interview 19 June 2012). Labour migration plays a role in shaping responses to agrarian extractivism and general inequality, and it partially explains the absence of calls from the countryside for meaningful political transformation. Besides the physical absence of labour migrants, important furthermore is that, while many are skeptical about the meaning of parliamentary and presidential elections, labour migrants also encounter difficulties in voting abroad (Yusufi Citation2020).

Tajikistan has been one of the world’s most remittance-dependent economies; in 2013 remittances amounted to around 50 per cent of the country’s GDP (World Bank Citation2016). Over one million people have reportedly migrated in recent years (equalling approximately 12.5 per cent of the population). Rural-urban migration is much less prominent given the scarcity of meaningful domestic employment opportunities.

Migration has important ramifications for Tajik society. Many households have become female-headed in the past two decades, and a feminisation of farming has taken place. Given that many women are relatively isolated from the public sphere in the patriarchal setting of Tajikistan, it may not be surprising that rural protests remain limited. As Scott (Citation1976, 213) noted in the context of Southeast Asia, “the withdrawal of a substantial fraction of young adult males from the village is likely to deprive it of much of its potential lower class leadership.”

Interestingly, “flight” was also a prominent response to forced labour in colonial Mozambique, where “[w]hatever concrete form this type of resistance took, withholding labour represented the harshest blow an individual could strike” (Isaacman Citation1996, 210). However, it is sometimes difficult to disentangle coping strategies from resistance strategies, particularly since the decision to leave Tajikistan tends to be made jointly within families. While intent matters, several factors may play a role, and coping strategies – that is to say when migration is undertaken to secure survival – can simultaneously be an act of resistance, and may undermine regime revenues and power (cf. Isaacman Citation1996). As such, coping strategies may exhibit elements of protest. During the outbreak of the global pandemic many migrants were unable to leave Tajikistan, and demand for land did increase. However, many of those I met waiting to leave again, did not consider (full time) farming an option, for economic and political reasons.

Voice under domination: petition writing

One way in which particular segments of the Tajik population voice concern is through social media. Internet has spread rapidly, allowing people, mainly younger generations, to express critique on social media, sometimes aggressively, and using a pseudonym. However, social media are often not frequented by older generations. Farmers tend to voice their concerns differently, such as in the form of petitioning. As also noted in my earlier work (Hofman Citation2018), people write letters (ariza) to authorities (see also Mandler Citation2019). In some instances this is effective, in other cases such petitions remain without result.

As one farmer lamented (interview 16 July 2012):

F:

We pay taxes for fields we cannot use. We contacted the hukumat [district authorities], no response. A research institute in Dushanbe identified that 226 hectares here are affected and that the fields need to be cleaned, but since the head of the hukumat changes every three to four years, they can say that they bring betterment, but they leave without any action. I don’t go to the hukumat any longer, I don’t trust them.

IH:

What about the local authorities?

F:

No, no. I brought letters, but no response. Yet we do pay taxes, around 200–300 Tajik somoni per hectare per year!

Petitioning has a long history; it was practised in the Emirate of Bukhara and was fairly common in the Soviet Union and has remained a primary way for people to raise attention, voice concerns, or seek help. The vocabulary of petitions is specific; use of the literary language is required and for that reason people sometimes ask help to formulate their appeal. Most often people address district or high-level authorities to complain about local affairs. I observed that people even brought complaint letters to the president's palace in the capital city Dushanbe. This seems to echo a kind of “naïve monarchism” as observed by Mamonova (Citation2016) in Russia, and in some contexts reminisces “rightful resistance” as observed by O'Brien (Citation1996) in China. By addressing higher-level authorities regarding the unlawful acts of lower-level authorities, people “[operated] near the boundary of an authorized channel, [employed] the rhetoric and commitments of the powerful to curb political or economic power, and [hinged] on locating and exploiting divisions among the powerful” (O'Brien Citation1996, 33). In one locality, in March 2018, citizens addressed their regional governor in a public meeting and aired their grievance with a Chinese agribusiness that had cultivated farm fields in their vicinity for some years. The district authorities were held responsible, and the governor stated they (district authorities) should carefully study the regulations to avoid future issues, and solve the problem.Footnote5

When addressing the president or high level authorities, people avoid direct confrontation. However, the fact that complaints often remain unanswered, makes people skeptical and lessens their hope for change. When I asked a farmer (14 August 2013) whether he had joined others to demand authorities to clean the drainage system, he answered: “You can write a [whole] book here, but who is going to clean [the drainage system]?”

Petitioning is popular, despite the fact many people are skeptical about law, and invoking law, and starting court cases, particularly related to family and land conflicts, has become more common, and lawyers have seen their work increasing. The state provides citizens with such ways to express concerns, which may serve as safety valve. By allowing citizens to express grievances, the state shows it is responsive to citizens' concerns. Different state agencies have also established confidential telephone lines (telefoni bovari) for complaints. However, particularly when high level regime interests are concerned, citizens' ability to seek redress, and people's courage to express discontent openly, remain limited (see also Mostowlansky (Citation2013) and Lemon and Thibault (Citation2018)). However, overseas political opponents “exercise agency and have resisted government practices through a range of tactics, including voicing concern through human rights organizations, seeking asylum beyond the government’s reach, and lodging formal complaints with international courts” (Lemon Citation2018, 80). Policy-makers and scholars have also debated to what extent the repressive regimes in Central Asia trigger religious (Islamic) radicalisation (cf. Lemon Citation2018), which touches on Scott’s thesis in that peasants come to rely on “religious or oppositionist structures” (Scott Citation1976, 219). According to Lemon (Citation2018), however, radicalisation primarily occurs abroad. Within Tajikistan the state stringently monitors religious practices, and frequently uses the “threat narrative” to legitimise interventions in religious affairs.

Over several years I regularly met farmers who grumbled, lamenting power abuse and the lack of transparency in land use relations. The democratic nature of Tajikistan’s political system has also been regularly questioned in private conversations, and the cotton elite was regarded as a “mafia.” However, such expressions tend to remain limited to inside the home. I observed two instances of collective public protest in 2020, undertaken by women, in response to Chinese agribusinesses' practices in the women's vicinity. In one case, I recorded that women had protested against the alleged high levels of chemical inputs used by the Chinese agribusiness farming in their vicinity; women complained about fertility problems and allergies. According to local voices, the protest was silenced by elites. The second instance concerned the collective protest of women refusing to work for the Chinese, demanding better payment and labour conditions. Whilst the protests were short-lived, they were remarkable. Where senior elders and elites mobilise and monitor labourers and farmers, such public protests are less likely to happen.

Voice under domination: pilferage, diversification and discontent

Other expressions of “voice” in Tajikistan are more subtle, i.e. “everyday forms of peasant resistance” (cf. Scott Citation1985, 1990; see Harris Citation2004 on resistance in gender relations in Tajikistan). According to former farm workers of bankrupted elite-controlled LFEs, the bankruptcy of the large farms was due to foot dragging and pilferage by farm workers; others stated that it was politically motivated. Some Tajik workers on Chinese farms admitted to steal small volumes of cotton; female labourers pilfered raw cotton during the harvest; some male labourers, responsible for the mechanical work, took home small quantities of cotton seed (interviews June 2020), and during fieldwork in 2012, someone had stolen maize from a Chinese farm’s fields in the locality in which I worked. These acts of pilferage concerned limited amounts or volumes, sometimes triggered by people's personal interest (such as theft of cotton seed); in other cases rather expressing resistance (the theft of a few maize cobs).

Land use practices also exhibit resistance against production relations in the cotton economy. Bassett (Citation2001) observed multiple incidents of everyday forms of resistance expressed by cotton growing farmers in the Ivory Coast, and Isaacman (Citation1996) described how Mozambican peasants cooked cotton seeds to prevent the germination of seeds. I also observed how farmers seemed to express deference, but in fact challenged subordination. While in particular localities of Tajikistan the pressure to plant cotton continues, farmers find ways to grow other crops. If farmers can prove that cotton seeds fail to sprout, they are allowed to grow food crops. However, distinguishing these coping strategies from acts of resistance is, once again, difficult.

Rice production is popular in some localities of Tajikistan. In contrast to cotton, rice can be consumed and sold autonomously. However, authorities sometimes forbid it by arguing that rice growing can trigger outbreaks of malaria. Some farmers, therefore, planted rice secretly, as I noticed when talking with two siblings (interview 29 July 2013).

IH:

Do you know who those rice fields belong to?

Farmer:

Yes, they are his (and points to his brother, standing on the right).

[This farmer had stated earlier that he only owned a small orchard and told me he did not know who the rice fields belonged to. Both men are silent for a while, my assistant and I raise our eyebrows, we all do not know what to say.]

Farmer:

Well you know, it is salinized here in the area. Nothing grows well except for rice.

As rice was more profitable than cotton, and because cotton remained compulsory, some farmers used part of their rice profits to buy cotton from other farmers to fulfil their quota (as explained by a village inhabitant, March 2020). This contrast, or rather competition, between (profitable) rice and (unprofitable) cotton production played in Central Asia under Tsarist rule (more than a century ago) too (Peterson Citation2019) and has also been observed Uzbekistan more recently (Veldwisch and Spoor Citation2008; Trevisani Citation2007).

Furthermore, while farmers were reluctant to talk about these practices, one farmer told me (interview 23 April 2020) that he could fulfil his cotton quota by paying a small amount of money (150 Tajk somoni – equalling in June 2020 around 15 US dollars) for a document known as the “PK,” which would testify that he delivered cotton, in his case 1 ton of cotton, without actually doing so. Another farmer told with irony that local authorities themselves had offered him the possibility to purchase the document. While these are not everyday acts of resistance, and some might term these bribes, they are acts of non-compliance that echo practices of Soviet agriculture where “pripiski [meant] the registering of more products in the accounts than have in fact been produced” (cf. Humphrey Citation1983, 224). The manipulation of data is a public secret and happens at different levels. As a state official working at a district-level agricultural department stated: “We do some calculations, add some pluses, some minuses.” (interview 7 September 2020).

Besides such practices, jokes, rumours, and folk songs are also part of the repertoire of Scott’s (Citation1990) “arts of resistance” under domination. Isaacman (Citation1996) described how people in Mozambique expressed resistance through folk songs chanted during fieldwork. Such instances require little organisation. While I did not record folk songs in the fields, I did notice the circulation of a few songs on social media, in which people ironically lamented their difficulties to secure their livelihood. I also observed jokes. For instance, one prominent businessman in southwest Tajikistan who owned large swaths of land is called “without underwear” (betursuk), as, it was said, in childhood he lived in poverty and once could not join his friends in the pool because he was “without underwear.” Others interpreted his name differently, thinking it was used to indicate his greediness – as in he was too greedy to spend money, even on underwear.

Jokes and comments are also regularly made in response to the Chinese presence in Tajikistan. I observed expressions of admiration for the Chinese work ethic, and among some Tajik youth “China” has gained popularity. In rural Tajikistan working for Chinese enterprises has become popular in the absence of other cash-providing jobs, despite, as mentioned, xenophobic thoughts, including fears that the presence of Chinese men triggers prostitution and poses a threat to Tajik women.

Many people also assume that Chinese farm enterprises use high quantities of chemicals for crop production. As a farmer stated (interview 10 June 2020): “Even a donkey does not eat crops when applied with Chinese chemicals.” During fieldwork in 2013 people complained that the Chinese workers residing in their locality used toxic substances to rinse clothes in the village canals (thereby polluting drinking water). People were also concerned that when the Chinese enterprises would leave, village inhabitants would be left with a contaminated environment.

Most rumours that I recorded over the years resonate with the general discourse on “China” in Tajikistan, and with the discourse on “China” observed in other settings (Kimari Citation2021). Thoughts and statements related to (for instance) the quality of Chinese goods, Chinese actors' land use practices, and their eating habits, such as the consumption of dog and donkey meat, and pork (Hofman Citation2016a). There were also persistent thoughts that the Chinese government exports Chinese prisoners to overseas Chinese companies (cf. Yan and Sautman Citation2012). Critique on Chinese people sometimes also concerned religion; I recorded thoughts that all Chinese people were non-believers, which people criticised and contrasted with Muslim Tajiks.

Loyalty: understanding adverse incorporation

Besides the exodus and people voicing concerns, over my years of fieldwork I observed that many people conveyed “loyalty” (cf. Hirschman Citation1970) or, in Kerkvliet’s (Citation2009) terms, compliance. What can explain acquiescence? A part of Tajik society ideologically supports the regime, or the president personally. However, in the countryside, I noticed more often that many village inhabitants did not believe in their ability to, and the usefulness of, protest. This relates to the absence of the rule of law, and corruption, but more in particular people said that they had lost anyone that could represent them politically. Local power inequalities have been increasing since the civil war (in some of the localities in southwest Tajikistan in particular). When rural inhabitants (in March 2020) explained to me how a domestic strongman had transformed their former collective farm (kolkhoz) into his own private farm, with which formal shareholders were turned into ordinary farm labourers, they shrugged their shoulders. They saw no window of opportunity to protest, resembling the thoughts of the farmer quoted earlier.

The provision of public goods or support by some domestic elites also plays a role in limiting protests, as it encourages loyalty (cf. Radnitz Citation2010, on Kyrgyzstan; Trevisani Citation2007 on Uzbekistan). In turn, people’s recourse to patronage can force them into exploitative labour relations and adverse incorporation. Collective identities and patron-client networks are instrumental in the organisation of rural labour (cf. Boboyorov Citation2013).

Protesting, in response to domestic elites’ power abuse or in response to the presence of, and labour conditions on, Chinese farms, is also regarded risky as people fear losing access to land and to other sources of income, or even punishment. Given the high unemployment rates in Tajikistan, farm labourers feared that protests would directly lead to being discharged, and working for Chinese enterprises, despite, as mentioned, some harbouring xenophobic thoughts, has gained in popularity. It is imperative to survive, and work, even in difficult conditions, is better than having no job at all.

In the cotton economy, this “adverse incorporation” is also triggered by the fact that, firstly, growing cotton allows people to also plant food crops and to pasture animals. Particularly land for pasturing is important as livestock is regarded as “living capital.” Secondly, for a long time the cotton harvest was one of the only opportunities in rural Tajikistan in which farm labourers could earn cash; in other instances payment was often made in kind (e.g. food crops or cotton stalks). Thirdly, cotton stalks are essential as a source of fuel in rural Tajikistan, as people lack access to gas and a reliable electricity supply. As a result of these dependencies, rural dwellers are not entirely excluded from farming, but are incorporated on adverse terms.

Note that, what further sustains the cotton economy is the fact that cotton is much less perishable than most vegetables. While the production and marketing of food crops have improved in Tajikistan, particularly as a result of international donor projects focused on agricultural value chains, in the semi-arid climate of southwest Tajikistan post-harvest facilities sometimes continue to be poorly developed, as mentioned earlier. This makes production of perishable vegetables risky.

Besides these dynamics that explain loyalty and acquiescence to forced cotton production, I observed people who expressed their conviction that cotton was needed to sustain the Tajik economy, thus internalising state propaganda. Some farmers also held strong beliefs that cotton was the only crop that would mature on their fields. In essence, in these instances, planting the crop seemed “common sense” (cf. Gramsci [Citation1971] Citation1999). During the Soviet era, agricultural specialists as well as farm workers were indoctrinated that cotton was to be planted and was the best crop for the fields, and this thinking continues. The state has a strong paternalistic attitude and the president and other authorities regularly disseminate detailed instructions regarding agricultural production.

Local elites also tend to stress the importance of village honour and peace, with which they try to limit expressions of discontent (cf. Boboyorov Citation2013). In this way, conflict is settled locally before it can become politicised at a higher level. More generally, people’s fear of a new civil war plays a role in suppressing protests. During fieldwork, war experiences were recalled particularly by the older generation as if the war had ended yesterday. “When we returned from Afghanistan, [the people affiliated to the regime] had taken all the [good] houses” (interview with a female villager, 25 July 2013). Today’s peace is a “peace of repression rather than [a] peace of contentment” (cf. Scott Citation1976, 228). “For us, most important is that we have peace” (conversation with a couple in rural Tajikistan, 22 April 2019).

Conclusion

In Tajikistan, domestic elites control significant tracts of land and Chinese enterprises are expanding in size and significance. Both are of rural dwellers’ concern. In this paper, I analysed rural dwellers’ responses to these dynamics; that is, the repertoire of contention, and I identified responses that can be categorised as “exit, voice, and loyalty” (cf. Hirschman Citation1970).

Conflicts over land were looming in the late 1980s in Tajikistan. However, the post-socialist era has witnessed a remarkable silence when it comes to rural dwellers’ voices. In this paper, I have been primarily concerned with the absence of rural rebellion, and I have highlighted a few critical factors to explain the absence of (public) protests in the localities I have studied, and in Tajikistan at large.

First of all, the country’s deepening authoritarian regime, as well as, second, the legacy and valued narratives of the Tajik Civil War play important roles in suppressing protests. Third, labour migration is important to understand the (absence of) contentious politics in Tajikistan. Many potentially rebellious actors are overseas. As once noted by a diplomat in Tajikistan (in an informal interview, 23 August 2013): “if Russia closed its borders all men would return. We would experience a second civil war. Who is going to feed all those people?” This question became particularly relevant following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020. As a result of border closures many labour migrants were unable to leave Tajikistan. The situation stayed relatively calm, as I observed during my stay in Tajikistan throughout the year, despite high unemployment. However, the crisis put great pressure on domestic society, in particular on local communities and household level.

Fourth, the lack of contention is connected to people’s marginalisation, which simultaneously allows for exploitation. Particular localities in Tajikistan resemble the countryside of (Karimov-era) Uzbekistan, where “regime security rested on a system in which the population was kept politically docile as a result of its being dependent on state employment or tied to the land” (Radnitz Citation2010, 58). If cotton prices were higher, if there was genuine “freedom to farm,” and if the rural infrastructure was well-maintained, more people would be able to make a living from farming, and might perceive openings to express discontent. What is more, in such a situation the Chinese enterprises would not have a comparative advantage over Tajik farmers, and future research should provide more insights into the relationships between migration, land use, and large-scale land concessions (cf. Kelley et al. Citation2020 on Southeast Asia).

For those in the margins, labour, access to land, and access to cotton stalks are essential to secure their fragile livelihoods. This adverse inclusion perpetuates relations of power. Inclusion on adverse terms is preferred to being excluded altogether. As Murray (Citation2001, 5) argued: “the idea of ‘differential [or adverse] incorporation’ into the state, the market and civil society is perhaps more appropriate” to analyse severe poverty, than a focus on (complete) “social exclusion from the state, the market and civil society.”

It is the complex societal configuration in Tajikistan that hampers the emergence of a meaningful domestic societal movement, which can challenge the ruling regime and influence the state. The repertoire of contention is contingent on regime characteristics (cf. Tilly Citation2006) from the top to the local level, and acts of resistance are also shaped by the commodity specific nature of cotton. Labour exploitation continues to shape daily life in rural Tajikistan, in which “exiting” the countryside is a necessary, but not always desired, decision that many rural dwellers make.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Additional information

Funding

The author is grateful for the support provided by the Catharine van Tussenbroek Fonds; the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI); and Leiden University’s Leiden Asia Centre and its Central Asia Initiative for enabling fieldwork in various periods between 2012 and 2015. The author also expresses her gratitude to Gabrielle van den Berg (Leiden University) with her NWO Vici/Aspasia project “Turks, Texts and Territory: Imperial Ideology and Cultural Production in Central Eurasia” for supporting fieldwork in Tajikistan in 2019, and the European Research Council (ERC) (grant agreement No. 803763), for funding fieldwork in Tajikistan in 2020.

Notes on contributors

Irna Hofman

Irna Hofman (PhD Leiden University, the Netherlands 2019), is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Oxford. She is a legal and rural sociologist specialising in agrarian transformation in Central Asia, with interests and expertise in agrarian political economy, labour relations, food security, gender and environmental studies, and the presence of Chinese actors in Central Asia. Her work has been published in various journals including in The Journal of Peasant Studies, Land Use Policy, the Eurasian Geography and Economics, and Problems of Post Communism.

Notes

1 In this paper, I use the term “peasant”/“peasantry” only in reference to the literature. I explicitly do not use the term “peasant” to denote a farmer in the Tajik context, as the term “peasant” is an ideologically laden concept and is problematic as contemporary smallholders tend to be (at least partially) integrated into global commodity chains.

2 In this regard, Tajikistan is different from, for instance, war-torn Colombia, where commercial agriculture effectually expanded in relatively violent areas (Gómez, Sánchez-Ayala, and Vargas Citation2015).

3 The Tajik state is the sole owner of land in Tajikistan. Farmers can obtain land use rights which endow them with inheritable rights over land.

4 These Chinese agribusinesses partner with national level elites and have established subsidiaries, which have been registered locally, as joint ventures. However, in daily parlance they are known as “Chinese.” For that reason I also use the adjective “Chinese” to refer to these companies.

5 To protect anonymity of the locality, I cannot provide a reference.

References

  • Ashurov, A. 2019. “Pakhta dar Tojikiston Arzon Shud. Ba Zarari Dehqonon, ba Foida Shirkatho? [Cotton in Tajikistan Became Cheap. To the Detriment of Farmers, Benefiting Companies?].” Radio Ozodi, September 5. Accessed September 6, 2019. https://www.ozodi.org/a/cotton-low-price-in-tajikistan/30148198.html.
  • Asiwaju, A. I. 1976. “Migrations as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta Before 1945.” The Journal of African History 17 (4): 577–594. doi: 10.1017/S0021853700015073
  • Bassett, T. J. 2001. The Peasant Cotton Revolution in West Africa: Côte d'Ivoire, 1880–1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • BBC. 2016. “Kazakhstan’s Land Reform Protests Explained.” BBC, April 28. Accessed December 18, 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36163103.
  • Bernstein, H. 2010. Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change. Sterling: Kumarian Press.
  • Boboyorov, H. 2013. Collective Identities and Patronage Networks in Southern Tajikistan. Münster: LIT Verlag.
  • Faromarzi, F. 2012. “Tojikon ba Rusiya, Chiniho ba Tojikiston? Charo Dehqoni Tojik ba Rusiya Ravad va ba Joi ū Dehqoni Chini ba Tojikiston Oyad? [Tajiks to Russia, Chinese to Tajikistan? Why Does a Tajik Farmer Go to Russia, and a Chinese Farmer Comes to Tajikistan Instead?].” Nigoh, January 18: 2.
  • Gómez, C. J. L., L. Sánchez-Ayala, and G. A. Vargas. 2015. “Armed Conflict, Land Grabs and Primitive Accumulation in Colombia: Micro Processes, Macro Trends and the Puzzles in Between.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (2): 255–274. doi:10.1080/03066150.2014.990893.
  • Gramsci, A. (1971) 1999. Selections from the Prison Notebooks . Translated and edited by Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith. London: ElecBook.
  • Hall, R., M. Edelman, S. M. Borras, I. Scoones, B. White, and W. Wolford. 2015. “Resistance, Acquiescence or Incorporation? An Introduction to Land Grabbing and Political Reactions ‘from Below’.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3–4): 467–488. doi:10.1080/03066150.2015.1036746.
  • Harris, C. 2004. Control and Subversion: Gender Relations in Tajikistan. London: Pluto Press.
  • Harvey, D. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Heathershaw, J., and P. Mullojonov. 2018. “Rebels Without a Cause? Authoritarian Conflict Management in Tajikistan, 2008–2015.” In Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations, edited by M. Laruelle, 33–62. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  • Hickey, S., and A. du Toit. 2007. Adverse Incorporation, Social Exclusion and Chronic Poverty. Working Paper 81. Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). Accessed August 10, 2021. https://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP81_Hickey_duToit.pdf
  • Hirschman, A. O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • Hofman, I. 2016a. “More Foreign than Other Foreigners: On Discourse and Adoption, the Contradiction of Astonishment and Fear for Chinese Farm Practices in Tajikistan.” In Agricultural Knowledge and Knowledge Systems in Post-Soviet Societies, edited by A.-K. Hornidge, A. Shtaltovna, and C. Schetter, 201–221. Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Hofman, I. 2016b. “Politics or Profits Along the ‘Silk Road’: What Drives Chinese Farms in Tajikistan and Helps Them Thrive?” Eurasian Geography and Economics 57 (3): 457–481. doi:10.1080/15387216.2016.1238313.
  • Hofman, I. 2018. “Soft Budgets and Elastic Debt: Farm Liabilities in the Agrarian Political Economy of Post-Soviet Tajikistan.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 45 (7): 1360–1381. doi:10.1080/03066150.2017.1293047.
  • Hofman, I., and O. Visser. 2021. “Towards a Geography of Window Dressing and Benign Neglect: The State, Donors and Elites in Tajikistan’s Trajectories of Post-Soviet Agrarian Change.” Land Use Policy. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105461.
  • Humphrey, C. 1983. Marx Went Away-But Karl Stayed Behind. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Isaacman, A. F. 1996. Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
  • Kawabata, M., A. Berardo, P. Mattei, and S. de Pee. 2020. “Food Security and Nutrition Challenges in Tajikistan: Opportunities for a Systems Approach.” Food Policy 96. doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101872.
  • Kelley, L. C., N. Lee Peluso, K. M. Carlson, and S. Afiff. 2020. “Circular Labor Migration and Land-Livelihood Dynamics in Southeast Asia's Concession Landscapes.” Journal of Rural Studies 73: 21–33. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.11.019.
  • Kerkvliet, B. J. T. 2009. “Everyday Politics in Peasant Societies (and Ours).” The Journal of Peasant Studies 36 (1): 227–243. doi:10.1080/03066150902820487.
  • Kimari, W. 2021. “‘Under Construction’: Everyday Anxieties and the Proliferating Social Meanings of China in Kenya.” Africa 91 (1): 135–152. doi:10.1017/S0001972020000996.
  • Lemon, E. 2018. “From Moscow to Madrid: Governing Security Threats Beyond Tajikistan’s Borders.” In Tajikistan on the Move: Statebuilding and Societal Transformations, edited by M. Laruelle, 63–86. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  • Lemon, E., and H. Thibault. 2018. “Counter-Extremism, Power and Authoritarian Governance in Tajikistan.” Central Asian Survey 37 (1): 137–159. doi:10.1080/02634937.2017.1336155.
  • Lichbach, M. I. 1994. “What Makes Rational Peasants Revolutionary? Dilemma, Paradox, and Irony in Peasant Collective Action.” World Politics 46 (3): 383–418. doi:10.2307/2950687.
  • Lubkemann, S. C. 2008. Culture in Chaos. An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Luna, J. K. 2019. “The Chain of Exploitation: Intersectional Inequalities, Capital Accumulation, and Resistance in Burkina Faso's Cotton Sector.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (7): 1413–1434. doi:10.1080/03066150.2018.1499623.
  • Mamonova, N. 2015. “Resistance or Adaptation? Ukrainian Peasants’ Responses to Large-Scale Land Acquisitions.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 42 (3–4): 607–634. doi:10.1080/03066150.2014.993320.
  • Mamonova, N. 2016. “Naive Monarchism and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Russia.” Rural Sociology 81 (3): 316–342. doi:10.1111/ruso.12097.
  • Mamonova, N., and O. Visser. 2014. “State Marionettes, Phantom Organizations or Genuine Movements? The Paradoxical Emergence of Rural Social Movements in Post-Socialist Russia.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (4): 491–516. doi:10.1080/03066150.2014.918958.
  • Mandler, A. 2019. “Agricultural Expertise and Knowledge Practices Among Individualized Farm Households in Tajikistan.” PhD Diss., University of Bonn.
  • Mostowlansky, T. 2013. “‘The State Starts From the Family’: Peace and Harmony in Tajikistan's Eastern Pamirs.” Central Asian Survey 32 (4): 462–474. doi:10.1080/02634937.2013.864839.
  • Murray, C. 2001. Livelihoods Research: Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues. Working Paper 5. Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). Accessed October 20, 2021. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1754541
  • Nourzhanov, K., and C. Bleuer. 2013. Tajikistan: A Political and Social History. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
  • O'Brien, K. J. 1996. “Rightful Resistance.” World Politics 49: 31–55. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25053988 doi: 10.1353/wp.1996.0022
  • Peterson, M. K. 2019. Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Radnitz, S. 2010. Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  • Scott, J. C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Scott, J. C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • TajStat. 2018. Tajikistan in Figures. Dushanbe: Statistical Agency of the Republic of Tajikistan.
  • Tarrow, S. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Tilly, C. 2006. Regimes and Repertoires. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Trevisani, T. 2007. “After the Kolkhoz: Rural Elites in Competition.” Central Asian Survey 26 (1): 85–104. doi:10.1080/02634930701423509.
  • UNDP. 2012. Tajikistan: Poverty in the Context of Climate Change. Washington, DC: UNDP. Accessed June 18, 2019. https://www.undp.org/content/dam/tajikistan/docs/library/UNDP_TJK_HDR_2012_Eng.pdf.
  • Van Atta, D. 2009. “‘White Gold’ or Fool’s Gold? The Political Economy of Cotton in Tajikistan.” Problems of Post-Communism 56 (2): 17–35. doi:10.2753/PPC1075-8216560202.
  • Veldwisch, G. J. A., and M. Spoor. 2008. “Contesting Rural Resources: Emerging ‘Forms’ of Agrarian Production in Uzbekistan.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 35 (3): 424–451. doi:10.1080/03066150802340420.
  • White, B., S. M. Borras, R. Hall, I. Scoones, and W. Wolford. 2012. “The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 39 (3–4): 619–647. doi:10.1080/03066150.2012.691879.
  • Wolf, E. R. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
  • World Bank. 2016. The World Bank-Tajikistan Partnership Program Snapshot. Washington, DC: World Bank.
  • World Bank. 2020. Poverty in Tajikistan 2020. Washington, DC: World Bank. Accessed August 10, 2021. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2020/10/15/poverty-in-tajikistan-2020.
  • Yan, H., and B. Sautman. 2012. “Chasing Ghosts: Rumours and Representations of the Export of Chinese Convict Labour to Developing Countries.” The China Quarterly 210: 398–418. doi:10.1017/S0305741012000422.
  • Yusufi, M. 2020. “Muhojiron Ruzi Intikhobot Dar Kujo Ra’y Dihand? [Where Do Migrants Vote on Election Day?].” Radio Ozodi, February 27. Accessed June 10, 2020. https://www.ozodi.org/a/30456584.html.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.