Extreme but not exceptional: Towards an analysis of the agrarian question in Uganda

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the social relations of production and their contradictions in African peasant agriculture, which combine the ‘dull compulsion’ of market forces on petty commodity producers with various forms of extra‐economic coercion. Two paths of accumulation from below and from above are distinguished, the latter based in possession of, or access to, state power. Class formation and agrarian crisis are investigated through the mechanisms and effects of the two types of accumulation, illustrated by data on two villages in different areas of Uganda, which provide an extreme but not exceptional case of the agrarian question in contemporary African conditions. The analysis allows some strategic political conclusions to be suggested.