The New Peasantries: Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability in an Era of Empire and Globalization

385 Pages·2008·3.95 MB·English

by  Jan Douwe van der Ploeg

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The New Peasantries
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The New Peasantries
Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability
in an Era of Empire and Globalization
Jan Douwe van der Ploeg
London • Sterling, VA
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First published by Earthscan in the UK and USA in 2008
Copyright © Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, 2008
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-84407-558-4
Typeset by FiSHBooks, Enfield
Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International, Padstow
Cover design by Susanne Harris
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ploeg, Jan Douwe van der, 1950-
The new peasantries : struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of
empire and globalization / Jan Douwe van der Ploeg.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-84407-558-4 (hardback)
1. Peasantry. 2. Agricultural systems. I. Title. II. Title: Struggles for auton-
omy and sustainability in an era of empire and globalization.
HD1521.P56 2008
305.5'633—dc22
2008011072
The paper used for this book is FSC-certified.
FSC (the Forest Stewardship Council) is an
international network to promote responsible
management of the world’s forests.
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Contents
List of Figures, Tables and Boxes ix
Preface xiii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xix
1 Setting the Scene 1
Introduction 1
Industrialization 5
Repeasantization 6
Deactivation 7
Interrelations between constellations and processes 8
The coming crisis 10
The methodological basis 12
Contents and organization of the book 14
2 What, Then, Is the Peasantry? 17
Introduction 17
The ‘awkward’ science 18
A comprehensive definition of the peasant condition 23
On commonalities, differentiation and change 35
From peasant condition to the peasant mode of farming 42
Labour-driven intensification 45
Multilevel distantiation and its relevance in the ‘modern’ world 49
3 Catacaos: Repeasantization in Latin America 53
Introduction 53
Repeasantization 54
Mechanisms of repeasantization 59
The effects of repeasantization: Intensification of production 62
Spurred intensification 63
New modalities of repeasantization 65
Meanwhile: The rise of Empire 69
The peasant community and Empire 80
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vi The New Peasantries
4 Parmalat: A European Example of a Food Empire 87
Introduction 87
The mechanics of global expansion 87
Parmalat as a three-tiered network 93
Did Parmalat ever produce value? 96
The last resort: Fresh blue milk 101
The distorted development of food production and consumption 105
The non-exceptional nature of food degradation:
The rise of ‘lookalikes’ 106
Empire compared with a contrasting mode of patterning:
Regressive centralization versus redistributive growth 109
5 Peasants and Entrepreneurs (Parma Revisited) 113
Introduction 113
The multiple contrasts between peasant and entrepreneurial farming 113
From deviation to modernization: The historical roots of agrarian
entrepreneurship 125
The political economy of entrepreneurial farming 128
Heterogeneity reconsidered 136
The moral economy of the agricultural entrepreneurs 140
The fragility of entrepreneurial farming in the epoch
of globalization and liberalization 142
6 Rural Development: European Expressions of Repeasantization 151
Introduction 151
Mechanisms of repeasantization 152
Magnitude and impact 157
The quality of life in rural areas 160
Newly emerging peasant types of technology 167
Repeasantization as social struggle 178
7 Striving for Autonomy at Higher Levels of Aggregation:
Territorial Co-operatives 181
Introduction 181
What are territorial co-operatives? 182
A brief history of the North Frisian Woodlands 185
Novelty production 192
Dimensions of strategic niche management 201
Design principles 204
The construction of movability 206
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Contents vii
8 Tamed Hedgerows, a Global Cow and a ‘Bug’:
The Creation and Demolition of Controllability 211
Introduction 211
Taming hedgerows 211
The global cow 214
State apparatuses as important ingredients of Empire 218
Science as a Janus-faced phenomenon 220
The creation of a bug 226
Postscript 230
9 Empire, Food and Farming: A Synthesis 233
Introduction 233
From the Spanish to the current Empire 235
On railway systems and corporations 243
The third level 245
The central but contradictory role of information
and communication technology 247
State, markets and institutions 252
The role of science 253
Synthesis 255
10 The Peasant Principle 261
Introduction 261
Empire and the peasantry 262
Resistance 265
Reconstituting the peasantry 271
The ‘peasant principle’ 273
The peasant principle and agrarian crisis 278
Some notes on rural and agrarian policies 282
Notes 289
References 319
Index 347
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List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
Figures
1.1 Different but interlinked modes of farming 3
1.2 Patterns of connectivity 5
1.3 Transitional processes 9
1.4 An outline of the coming agrarian crisis 10
2.1 The contours of the theoretical impasse 18
2.2 Choreography of the peasant condition 24
2.3 The basic flows entailed in farming 29
2.4 Border zones, degrees and movements 37
2.5 The relatively autonomous, historically guaranteed scheme
of reproduction 44
2.6 Market-dependent reproduction 45
3.1 Land distribution in Catacaos, Castilla and Piura (1995) 56
3.2 The symbolic organization of the agricultural process
of production in Catacaos 67
3.3 ‘Clever geography’ 71
3.4 Available but de-linked resources 72
3.5 Modelling the world according to Empire 73
3.6 Representations of Empire:Barbed wire 74
3.7 Representations of Empire:Armed guards 74
3.8 Representations of Empire:Machinery 75
3.9 Representations of Empire:Artificial lakes 75
3.10 Representations of Empire:Water scarcity 76
3.11 Fresh Peruvian asparagus sold on European markets 77
3.12 An alternative patterning 84
4.1 The mechanics of expansion through mortgaging 89
4.2 Parmalat as a socio-technical network 94
4.3 Value flows 96
4.4 The making of latte fresco blu 103
4.5 Relative shares in world food market 110
5.1 The contadini (peasant) logic 118
5.2 The logic of the imprenditori agricoli(agricultural entrepreneurs) 119