Pain, Adam
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2024Peer reviewedOpen access
Between necessity and compulsion: opium poppy cultivation and the exigencies of survival in Badakhshan, Afghanistan
Pain, Adam
Abstract
Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Badakhshan, a borderland province in the northeast of Afghanistan, the paper explores the role that opium poppy cultivation has played in a marginal high-altitude economy. Framed by the analytic of 'narco-frontiers' and the puzzle of the persistence of small farmers in uneven agrarian transitions, the paper investigates the diversity of market and non-market institutions that operate across the means of production of opium. Rather than seeing opium poppy production as the vanguard of an agrarian transition, it is suggested that it is more of a rearguard action to ensure survival.
Keywords
opium; agrarian change; institutional diversity; mountain economies
Published in
The Journal of Peasant Studies
2024, Volume: 51, number: 4, pages: 902-921
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Economic Geography
Publication identifier
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2023.2216145
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122697