Call for Papers: Workshop on labour and large scale agriculture in post-independent Africa and Southeast Asia

Abstracts are invited for submission for a workshop on Labour in Large Scale Agriculture in Africa and Southeast Asia, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa on 19-22 September 2012.

The objectives of the symposium are to both give proper recognition to the employment dimension of LSA in Africa and Southeast Asia, and to re-instate in public debate a number of aspects of the ‘labour question’ which, although discussed from time to time in the historical literature, are largely absent from current narratives in the press and by international organizations, NGOs and firms. The aspects in question concern processes of recruitment, stabilization, qualification, contractualization and control of labour, as well as the way in which work is organized and in which workers orgnize themselves or are supported in doing so. The symposium will encourage contributions dealing with each of these issues, both in relation to specific modern (post-independence) cases as well as across cases, in relation to certain cross-cutting themes (see below). Cases may refer to specific crops/sectors, farms/plantations/companies or countries/regions.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 11 May, 2012