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
2023,
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

• Pain, Adam

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

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