Jostein Jakobsen: Neoliberalising the food regime ‘amongst its others’: the right to food and the state in India

In The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2018.

Author

Jostein Jakobsen

Abstract

This contribution explores the role of the state in the contemporary food regime in light of critical theories of neoliberalisation. Heeding recent calls for downscaling food regime analysis, I suggest a Gramscian reinterpretation of recent right-to-food legislation in India on the backdrop of longer histories of capital, power and nature. I argue for seeing the recent right-to-food case in India as partaking in a longstanding hegemonic process of neoliberalising the country’s agro-food system, where hegemony is negotiated through unstable equilibria facilitating renewed capital accumulation for dominant classes.

Keywords

Food regime analysis, India, right to food, neoliberalism, the state, political economy

Published Apr. 16, 2018 3:10 PM - Last modified Apr. 16, 2018 3:10 PM