While large-scale land reform continues in many countries, some states have responded to land claims through a series of scattered land provision measures. In this article, Sudheesh introduces the concept of ‘landfare’ as a framework to understand these measures, applying it within one specific context - the Adivasi land struggles in Kerala, India. 

He defines landfare as the myriad, dispersed strategies that the welfare state uses to respond to land demands, and highlights its origins in and divergence from traditional land reform scholarship. He then examines how Kerala, a region frequently cited in the literature for its 20th-century land reform, addresses the land claims of its Adivasi citizens in the 21st century through landfare. 

By exploring Adivasi land claims and state responses in Kerala, the article argues that landfare can operate through four primary mechanisms: obfuscation, withholding available land, projectization, and welfare fixes. In contrast to the ‘land-to-the-tiller’ objectives of 20th-century land reform, the landfare of the 21st century can be aimed at suppressing land struggles. 

R.C. Sudheesh (2025) ‘From Land Reform to Landfare: Land Claims and the Welfare State in Kerala, India’, Antipode 57 (2): 670-690.