Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy
A triannual Journal of Agrarian South Network and CARESAgrarian South is an interdisciplinary journal which promotes innovative research on the political economy of world development and aims to contribute to global debates on the multi-faceted challenges of our times, namely the agrarian, environmental and development crises.
The journal encourages original approaches to the political economy of development and invites research on issues related to land and agrarian reform, gender and labour relations, race and caste in social transformation, rural and urban industrialization, global environmental change, sustainable use of natural resources, land and social movements, trends and trajectories in the world economy, and North-South relations.
The journal promotes research in the intellectual traditions of the Third World and is committed to the advancement of autonomous capacity and thinking in the South.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Agrarian South is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal which promotes innovative research on the political economy of world development and aims to contribute to global debates on the multi-faceted challenges of our times, namely the agrarian, environmental and development crises.
The journal encourages original approaches to the political economy of development and is committed to the advancement of autonomous thinking in the South. The journal’s audience is the social science research community worldwide, as well as civil society activists and development practitioners.
The key thematic areas of concern for the journal are as follows:
• land and agrarian reforms in Africa, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean;
• agrarian and labour relations in peripheral social formations;
• gender, race and caste in social transformation;
• experiences in rural and urban industrialization;
• monopoly capitalism, financialization and the world economy;
• agro-industrial value systems in the world economy;
• energy, consumption and climate change;
• sustainable use of land, energy and natural resources;
• land, indigenous and social movements in national and world politics;
• alternative strategies for a multipolar, just and sustainable world order.
The journal publishes articles, book reviews, review essays, briefings on current affairs, and reports on events. It also promotes selected debates by means of occasional special issues and sections, including a permanent special section on Third World legacies.
| Sam Moyo (late) | African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Zimbabwe |
| Sandeep Chachra | Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South (CARES), New Delhi, India |
| Praveen Jha | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Lyn Ossome | Institute for Economic Justice, South Africa |
| Archana Prasad | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Marcelo Rosa | Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Issa Shivji | University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
| Dzodzi Tsikata | University of Ghana, Ghana |
| Paris Yeros | Federal University of ABC, Brazil |
| Max Ajl | Wageningen University, Netherlands |
| Walter Chambati | The Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Zimbabwe |
| Agostina Costantino | National University of the South, Argentina |
| Ricardo Jacobs | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Ng’wanza Kamata | University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
| Thiago Lima | Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil |
| Giuliano Martiniello | American University of Beirut, Lebanon |
| Abdourahmane Ndiaye | Bordeaux Montaigne University, France |
| Flavia Rios | Fluminense Federal University, Brazil |
| Vitor Schincariol | Federal University of ABC, Brazil |
| Sit Tsui | Southwest University, China |
| Joseph Awetori Yaro | University of Ghana, Ghana |
| Namrata Daniel | Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Thailand |
| Manish Kumar | University of Delhi, India |
| Damián Lobos | National Institute of Agricultural Technologies, Argentina |
| Freedom Mazwi | The Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Zimbabwe |
| Steven Mberi | The Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Zimbabwe |
| Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey | University of Ghana, Ghana |
| Jimi O Adesina | University of South Africa, South Africa |
| Kojo Amanor | University of Ghana, Ghana |
| Habib Ayeb | Université Paris 8, France |
| Clara Bellamy | National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico |
| Antonadia Borges | Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Merle L Bowen | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,USA |
| C P Chandrasekhar | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Horman Chitonge | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Deivison Mendes Faustino | Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil |
| Bernardo M Fernandes | State University of São Paulo, Brazil |
| Jayati Ghosh | University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA |
| Mammadou Goïta | IRPAD/Afrique, Mali |
| Yao Graham | Third World Network Africa, Ghana |
| Fred Hendricks | Rhodes University, South Africa |
| Kin Chi Lau | Lingnan University, Hong Kong |
| Amina Mama | University of California, USA |
| Mahmood Mamdani | Makerere Institute, Uganda |
| William Martin | SUNY Binghamton, USA |
| Carlos Eduardo Martins | Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Marjorie Mbilinyi | University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
| Marilda A Menezes | Federal University of ABC, Brazil |
| Godwin Murunga | CODESRIA, Senegal |
| Francisco Nemenzo | University of Philippines, Philippines |
| Lungisile Ntzebeza | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| Prabhat Patnaik | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| Utsa Patnaik | Jawaharlal Nehru University, India |
| D.N. Reddy | University of Hyderabad, India |
| Ebrima Sall | Trust Africa, Senegal |
| Henry Saragih | Via Campesina, Indonesia |
| Sérgio Sauer | FUP/UnB, Brazil |
| Christoph Scherrer | University of Kassel, Germany |
| Beverly Silver | The Johns Hopkins University, USA |
| Jomo Kwame Sundaram | International Islamic University, Malaysia |
| Zenebework Tadesse | Development Consultant, Ethiopia |
| Wen Tiejun | Renmin University, China |
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://peerreview.sagepub.com/ags to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal
1. What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper
2. Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research data
3. Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving
4. Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
5. Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions
6. On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article
Before submitting your manuscript to Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
There could be three to five sections in the journal:
- Articles
- Book Reviews
- Review Essays
- Briefings on Current Affairs
- Reports on Events
Articles, book reviews, and review essays should adhere to basic principles of scientific research. Articles should not exceed 8000 words, save for exceptional reasons, while book reviews and review essays should not exceed 800 and 2,000 words, respectively. Briefings and reports on events should not exceed 3,000 words.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway
At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, the journal encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
The manuscript should be structured as follows:
- Please submit a anonymized text file for your manuscript. Articles should be written in MS Word, Times New Roman font.
- The cover page should carry the title of the article, the author(s)’ name(s), institutional affiliation(s), address(es) (postal, email and web), and phone and fax numbers. In case there are two or more authors, then corresponding author’s name and address details must be clearly specified on the first page itself; all correspondence, including those of the proof of the article would be sent to her/him.
- All articles must be accompanied by an abstract of 150 words maximum, as well as five keywords for thematic indexing.
- Endnotes should be short and kept to a minimum, using the endnote function of your word processor; endnotes must contain more than a mere reference.
- Use American spellings (rather than British): universal ‘z’ in ‘ize’ and ‘ization’ words.
- Double quotation marks should be used for quotations within the text, single quotes should be inserted within quotations where necessary (e.g., ‘the so-called “classical” agrarian question’), and quotations consisting more than 45 words should be indented from the margin without quotation marks.
- Paragraphs should be separated by a single space, without indentation.
- The main body of the text may be divided into sections with appropriate headings and subheadings. Please note that the headings and subheadings should be typed on a separate line. Do not number or indent for headings and subheadings.
- Use of italics and diacriticals should be minimized but consistent. For non-English and uncommon words and phrases, use italics throughout the text. Meaning of non-English words should be given in parenthesis just after the word when it is used for the first time.
- Abbreviations are spelled out at first occurrence. Very common ones (US, GDP, BBC) need not be spelled out.
- In case, any pseudonym is used in the manuscripts, it should be clearly stated within the manuscripts.
- Numbers from one to nine should be written out in words, 10 and above should be in numerals; percentages and decimals in figures, and fractions spelt out as one half, two-thirds, etc., numerical ranges (1965–1969 or 234–256). However, for exact measurements use only figures (3 km; 9 per cent).
- Give specific dates in the form 22 November 1980. Decades should be referred to as ‘twenty-first century’, ‘the 1960s’.
- Ibid should not be used.
- Tables and figures should be provided in editable format and should be referred to in the text by number separately (e.g., Table 1) not by placement (e.g., see Table below).
- Graphs and figures should be numbered and submitted in a separate file, not embedded in the text.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy is hosted on Sage Track Sage, a web-based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/ags to log in and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.
Submissions should be original contributions and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
The journal reserves the right to return submissions, which do not fall within the aims and scope of the journal, which are not received according to the styles below, or which are insufficiently edited by the author.
The corresponding author will receive a link for the copyright form once a contribution is accepted for publication. The submission will be considered as final once the author submits the copyright form.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy editorial office as follows:
E-mail: agrariansouth@gmail.com