Emerging migrant workers and aspiring capitalist farmers in the aftermath of the land rush in Ethiopia

I argue that the recent emergence of aspiring small- and medium-size capitalist farmers in Ethiopia is both a spontaneous and state-orchestrated from and through the spectacular land rush during the past two decades. This emerging sector that shows great dynamism in land and capital accumulation has emerged not only and not primarily from the agriculture sector, but from non-agricultural and urban sectors mainly. Furthermore, this paper shows the inseparability, empirically and analytically, of land and labor, as well as production and social reproduction dynamics in explaining the character and trajectory of social change. The role played by migrant labor in the land rush has been manifested in two interconnected ways underpinned by a singular logic and social force, that is, the capitalist commodification of land and labor, namely, outward labor migration away from the land grab sites, and the inward migrant labor inflows into the same land grabs sites.