Eric Vanhaute Ghent University ECNU, July 4th Trajectories of Peasant Transformation. The incorporation and transformation of rural zones

Questions 1/ Where is the peasant? 2/ What is a peasant? 3/ Old (local) versus new (global) peasantries? 4/ Trajectories of peasant transformation 5/ A new agrarian question: de- peazantization as the global way to modernity? 2

1/ Where is the peasant? 3

Rural population (% total population) TotalWorldAfricaAsiaM-SoNorthEuro TotalWorldAfricaAsiaM-SoNorthEuro (billion) %(billion) AmAm (billion) %(billion) AmAm ,51 71%(1,79) 85%83%58%36%49% ,70 64%(2,37) 77%77%43%26%37% ,28 57%(3,01) 68%68%29%25%29% ,09 53%(3,24) 63%63%25%21%27% ,84 49%(3,37) 58%57%21%18%26% ,20 39%(3,21) 47%46%15%13%21% 4

Agricultural population (% total economically active population)

World agricultural labour force WorldHigh incomeLow income Ag. Labour force60%44%19%3%78%59% Ag. Labour intensity (ag labourers/ha) 6

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A 21th century urban world ? Equals de-agrarianization? De- ruralization? De-peasantization? -- more convergence? -- more proletarianization? 8

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2/ What is a peasant ? - In search for a definition - In search for a methodology In search for a definition - Peasants as a social group - Peasantries as a social process - Processes of ‘peasantization’ (de- and re-) 11

Peasants are rural, agricultural producers who control the land they work either as tenants or as smallholders - who are organised largely in households and in village communities, that meet most of their subsistence needs (production, exchange, credit), - who pool different forms of income and - who are ruled by other social groups who extract a surplus either directly via rents, via (non balanced) markets, or through control of state power (taxation) Key words are (some degree of) autonomy, income-pooling, household based village structures and surplus extraction outside local control 12

- Redefinition / Recreation - Struggles: -Acces to land -Access to household labour -Access to commons -Access to knowledge  Old and modern enclosures 13

Understanding peasantries in global history In search for a methodology - The global dimension? - Rural zones and frontiers Combining a comparative analysis with a (world-) systemic perspective: multiple scales of time / place / unit of analysis 14

3/ Old and new peasantries? The redefinition of ‘peasant spaces’ The reduction of ‘peasant spaces’ by - Recreation/redistribution/appropriation of wealth - Redefining livability of local systems of protection/support/credit - Internalization of social and ecological costs - The enclosure of ‘commons’  An increasing vulnerability 15

The redefinition of ‘peasant spaces’ - 16 th century: peasant zones around capitalist centers around North Sea - 19 th century: forced (re-) peasantization in European colonies - 21th century: (re-) peasantization as anti- systemic force ? 16

Contextualizing ‘the European way’: de-peasantization - Success: economic growth, social welfare - From informal to formal protection systems - From local/regional to national/global scale - Externalizing social en ecological costs (green revolution!) 17

4/ Our research project: trajectories of peasant transformation Different roads of transformation of peasant societies: North-Western Europe (North Sea Area) - China (Yangzi River Delta) - Latin-America (Central Andes) - (Central Africa) 18

Focus: Zones and frontiers - Frontiers as zones of sustained contact between different social systems - External / horizontal frontiers Internal / vertical frontiers - Peasant zones as (peripheral) spaces of exploitation and recreation 19

Social and spatial differentiation - Uneven incorporation and uneven commodification - processes of de- and re- peasantization are also the outcome of changing strategies of peasant livelihood diversification - decrease of the margins of survival 20

Central field of struggle: Rights of Access and Rights of Property - Property - Access - Rights To means of production: labour, capital goods, land and natural resources, knowledge

Debates - Institutional economics - Social power relations (competition over peasant surplus) - Social distribution of property - Frontiers of commodification - ‘new peasantries’

Actors (who has rights / who defines rights) - Peasant (families) - Village institutions - Lords - Markets - States (government) - Social movements

Trajectories of change - Defining rights / redistribution of rights - Types of labour /surplus accumulation - Types of peasant organisation / resistence - Systemic changes in the capitalist world-system

5/ The European way = The global way? de-peasantization ? - Success: economic growth, social welfare - From informal to formal protection systems - From local/regional to national/global scale - Externalizing social en ecological costs (green revolution!) 25

Europe’s Message Theory of progress: modernization - Industrialization / de-peasantization - Economic integration / free trade - Promise of individual wealth and collective protection  Processes of the core – examples for the periphery? 26

Limits of the European message? From food security to food sovereignty? A new ruralization? ‘peasants of the world’ - New forms of sustainability - Framework of organisation, mobilisation, discours, identity - New local and global movements? 27