Multiple Trajectories of Rural Industrialisation

One of the apparent anachronisms of late twentieth-century capitalism is the dispersal of industry into villages and towns in predominantly rural regions. Rural industrialisation appears almost oxymoronic. Yet some of the most spectacular instances of industrial accumulation in recent decades– including the Third Italy, significant parts of the ‘Taiwanese miracle’, and much of the stunningly rapid growth in China since the mid-1980s–all exemplify rural industrialisation. ¹ So too do a number of less glamorous manifestations of late capitalism, such as those in former bantustan areas of South Africa. The emergence of these globalised sites of accumulation, export production, and ‘rural urbanisation’ (Sanghera and Harriss-White 1995) underscores the continuing salience of agrarian questions as we move towards the new millennium.