diff --git a/dev/release/00-prepare.sh b/dev/release/00-prepare.sh
index 3423a3e6c5b..00af5e77681 100644
--- a/dev/release/00-prepare.sh
+++ b/dev/release/00-prepare.sh
@@ -43,9 +43,4 @@ mvn release:prepare -Dtag=${tag} -DreleaseVersion=${version} -DautoVersionSubmod
 
 cd -
 
-cd "${SOURCE_DIR}/../../python"
-sed -i "s/VERSION = '[^']*'/VERSION = '${version}'/g" setup.py
-sed -i "s/ISRELEASED = False/ISRELEASED = True/g" setup.py
-cd -
-
 echo "Finish staging binary artifacts by running: sh dev/release/01-perform.sh"
diff --git a/cpp/cmake_modules/FindParquet.cmake b/python/cmake_modules/FindParquet.cmake
similarity index 100%
rename from cpp/cmake_modules/FindParquet.cmake
rename to python/cmake_modules/FindParquet.cmake
diff --git a/python/pyarrow/__init__.py b/python/pyarrow/__init__.py
index a42e39cf986..39ba4c72e7d 100644
--- a/python/pyarrow/__init__.py
+++ b/python/pyarrow/__init__.py
@@ -17,6 +17,14 @@
 
 # flake8: noqa
 
+from pkg_resources import get_distribution, DistributionNotFound
+try:
+    __version__ = get_distribution(__name__).version
+except DistributionNotFound:
+   # package is not installed
+   pass
+
+
 import pyarrow.config
 
 from pyarrow.array import (Array,
@@ -43,5 +51,3 @@
                             DataType, Field, Schema, schema)
 
 from pyarrow.table import Column, RecordBatch, Table, from_pandas_dataframe
-
-from pyarrow.version import version as __version__
diff --git a/python/setup.cfg b/python/setup.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..caae3e081b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/python/setup.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+[build_sphinx]
+source-dir = doc/
+build-dir  = doc/_build
diff --git a/python/setup.py b/python/setup.py
index 5f448f7d507..2e595e2dc87 100644
--- a/python/setup.py
+++ b/python/setup.py
@@ -42,27 +42,9 @@
 if Cython.__version__ < '0.19.1':
     raise Exception('Please upgrade to Cython 0.19.1 or newer')
 
-VERSION = '0.1.0'
-ISRELEASED = False
-
-if not ISRELEASED:
-    VERSION += '.dev'
-
 setup_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
 
 
-def write_version_py(filename=os.path.join(setup_dir, 'pyarrow/version.py')):
-    a = open(filename, 'w')
-    file_content = "\n".join(["",
-                              "# THIS FILE IS GENERATED FROM SETUP.PY",
-                              "version = '%(version)s'",
-                              "isrelease = '%(isrelease)s'"])
-
-    a.write(file_content % {'version': VERSION,
-                            'isrelease': str(ISRELEASED)})
-    a.close()
-
-
 class clean(_clean):
 
     def run(self):
@@ -272,15 +254,23 @@ def get_outputs(self):
         return [self._get_cmake_ext_path(name)
                 for name in self.get_names()]
 
-write_version_py()
-
 DESC = """\
 Python library for Apache Arrow"""
 
+# In the case of a git-archive, we don't have any version information
+# from the SCM to infer a version. The only source is the java/pom.xml.
+#
+# Note that this is only the case for git-archives. sdist tarballs have
+# all relevant information (but not the Java sources).
+if not os.path.exists('../.git') and os.path.exists('../java/pom.xml'):
+    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
+    tree = ET.parse('../java/pom.xml')
+    version_tag = list(tree.getroot().findall('{http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0}version'))[0]
+    os.environ["SETUPTOOLS_SCM_PRETEND_VERSION"] = version_tag.text.replace("-SNAPSHOT", "a0")
+
 setup(
     name="pyarrow",
     packages=['pyarrow', 'pyarrow.tests'],
-    version=VERSION,
     zip_safe=False,
     package_data={'pyarrow': ['*.pxd', '*.pyx']},
     # Dummy extension to trigger build_ext
@@ -290,6 +280,8 @@ def get_outputs(self):
         'clean': clean,
         'build_ext': build_ext
     },
+    use_scm_version = {"root": "..", "relative_to": __file__},
+    setup_requires=['setuptools_scm'],
     install_requires=['cython >= 0.23', 'numpy >= 1.9', 'six >= 1.0.0'],
     description=DESC,
     license='Apache License, Version 2.0',