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

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.

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