Green capitalist economies through a focus on labour : enclosures, exploitation and class conflict in Senegal
Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The recent promotion of monetary incentives for preserving the environment is being \ninterpreted as a means of advancing capitalist interests. Until present most research on \nthis topic has concentrated on the strategies used by conservation organisations, private \ncompanies and development institutions, while little is known about how people \nworking to make a living (hereafter “workers”) are experiencing the development of \ngreen economies. This thesis seeks to fill this gap. It studies how the conditions of \nworkers’ labour are being shaped by the social relations of production enabling the \ndevelopment of nature-based tourism and forestry-related payment for ecosystem \nservice (PES) projects in a group of villages in the Sine-Saloum delta, Senegal. \nBased on a six-month period of primarily qualitative fieldwork research and drawing \nconceptually on Marx’s critique of political economy, it explores three ways in which \nthe social relations of capitalist production in this green economy have shaped labour \nconditions: a) the privatisation of 1800 hectares of mangrove forest through the creation \nof a tourism-oriented protected area; b) the activity of work in nature-based tourism and \nforestry-related PES projects; and c) workers’ mobilisations against exploitation and \nexpropriation. \nThe thesis shows how, through expropriation, exploitation and class conflict, the green \neconomy benefits capitalist owners while separating workers from the ownership of \ntheir labour. Forest privatisation belongs to a broader process of primitive accumulation \nwhere workers enable capital accumulation through their adaptations to capital. \nProduction in the green economy is based on social relations that perpetuate poverty, \ninequality and neo-colonial relations in neoliberal Senegal. The different contribution of \nnature-based tourism and PES projects to capital accumulation and the importance of \nclass conflict, workers’ disagreement and hope in this case study emphasise the \nheterogeneity and unpredictability of green economies. Socially-committed researchers \nwill benefit from integrating labour and the relations of production in their analyses.
Author: Rocío Hiraldo
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2734554218