The Agrarian South Network, CARES and other partners convened the Agrarian South Study Group 2024 on the theme “Historical Materialism and Historical Capitalism.” Held from April to October 2024, the Study Group provided a sustained intellectual space for scholars, researchers, postgraduate students and political activists to critically engage with the historical development of capitalism and the methodological questions involved in understanding social and economic change.
The Study Group explored historical materialism as a framework for analysing the relationship between material conditions, social relations, institutions and historical transformation. It examined how different forms of production and social organisation emerge, evolve and change within specific historical contexts, while situating these processes within the wider dynamics of capitalist development.
A central concern was the study of historical capitalism—its origins, expansion and uneven development, as well as the changing relationships between capital, labour, land, states and societies. Discussions encouraged participants to examine capitalism not as a uniform or static system, but as a historically evolving formation shaped by different trajectories across regions and periods.
The Study Group also created space to consider the particular experiences of the Global South, including questions of colonialism, imperialism, uneven development, agrarian transformation and the incorporation of peripheral economies into wider structures of capitalist accumulation. By placing these experiences within broader historical processes, the programme encouraged comparative and historically grounded approaches to political economy.
The 2024 Study Group continued the Agrarian South Network’s tradition of combining critical theoretical inquiry with perspectives emerging from the histories and contemporary realities of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It provided an opportunity for sustained collective learning and dialogue across disciplinary, regional and generational boundaries.
