Mapping agency and poverty dynamics through green revolutions in Tamil Nadu, India and Machakos County, Kenya

1. MAPPING AGENCY AND POVERTY DYNAMICS THROUGH GREEN REVOLUTIONS
IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA AND MACHAKOS COUNTY, KENYA
DATES: February 2017 – August 2019
PARTNERS: ESRC STEPS Centre, Science Policy Research Unit and
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India
African Centre for Technology Studies, Nairobi, Kenya
How is the agency of small farmers &
rural workers constituted through socio-
ecological relations, mediated by
technologies, in Green Revolution
regions?
How can a relational approach to agency
help us map & understand diverse
pathways into and out of poverty?
KEY QUESTIONS
Fieldwork and open-ended interviews
to assemble life histories of small farmers and
workers that map experiences of work, changes in
farming practices, livelihoods and qualitative shifts
in well-being since the 1970s
Analysis from existing longitudinal studies focused
on the changes driven by the Green Revolution
Multicriteria Mapping with farmers, workers,
policymakers, civil society organisations and
academics who study poverty through different
disciplinary lenses to collectively discuss possible
pathways out of poverty
METHODS
Life histories show how different forms of inequality
intersect to shape non-linear and gendered trajectories of
well-being. Subjective understandings of well-being and
theories of change highlight:
a) how multiple dimensions of deprivation are related
(eg illness, housing, delayed wages, volatile crop
prices, caste and gender discrimination, dispossession
from land, debt);
b) the ecological relations manifest in farming practices,
bodily depletion and care practices, that have been
absent from poverty debates in India;
c) political practices of small farmers and rural workers
and the limited sphere within which they are able to
negotiate with and against policies, institutions and
infrastructure that shape their lives
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
Our audiences include:
• Development practitioners
• Academics studying poverty, agrarian and rural transformations
Our research participants:
• Small farmers and rural workers
• Regional government officials eg village administrative officers
• Agricultural extension workers, grassroots cadre of political parties
• Farmers’ and workers’ associations + other civil society
organisations active in these regions
ENGAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION
IMPACTS
Emerging impacts are based
on generating discussion on new ways of
understanding poverty dynamics.
• Life histories map the shifting relations between
multiple dimensions of poverty
• Intersectional experiences of downward and
upward mobility
• How shifts in agricultural reforms intersect with
rural poverty alleviation schemes
This feeds into critical debates on the agrarian crisis
in India focusing on ecological sustainability and
political practices of marginalised rural groups
including landless workers. Workshops in India and
Kenya will share conceptual and methodological
learnings with wider community of researchers and
explore how these can inform rural livelihood
policies.