The Agrarian South Network, CARES and other partners convened the Agrarian South Study Group 2025 on the theme “Colonial Social Formations.” Held from April to October 2025, the Study Group provided a sustained intellectual space for scholars, researchers, postgraduate students and political activists to critically examine the historical formation of societies under colonial rule and the enduring structures shaped by colonialism.
The Study Group focused on the ways in which colonialism transformed economies, societies, institutions and relations of power, and on the diverse social formations that emerged through the interaction of colonial rule with pre-existing social, political and economic structures. Particular attention was given to understanding colonialism as a historical process that reshaped relations of land, labour, production, property, state power and social hierarchy.
The theme encouraged participants to explore the relationship between colonialism and capitalist development, including the processes through which colonial societies were incorporated into wider structures of accumulation and unequal exchange. It also provided a basis for examining the differentiated trajectories of societies across the Global South, and the historical roots of contemporary patterns of inequality, dependency and uneven development.
