Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century: Theories, Debates, Realities and Policies: International Studies in Poverty Research Meghnad Desai Zed Books

Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century

Theories, Debates, Realities and Policies

Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-First Century

Theories, Debates, Realities and Policies

Description

Peasants are a majority of the world's poor. Despite this, there has been little effort to bridge the fields of peasant and poverty studies. Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the Twenty-first Century provides a much-needed critical perspective linking three central questions: Why has peasantry, unlike other areas of non-capitalist production, persisted? Why are the vast majority of peasants poor? And how are these two questions related?

Interweaving contributions from various disciplines, the book provides a range of responses, offering new theoretical, historical and policy perspectives on this peasant 'world drama'. Scholars from both South and North argue that, in order to find the policy paths required to overcome peasants' misery, we need a seismic transformation in social thought, to which they make important contributions. They are convinced that we must build upon the peasant economy's advantages over agricultural capitalism in meeting the challenges of feeding the growing world population while sustaining the environment.

Structured to encourage debate among authors and mutual learning, Peasant Poverty and Persistence takes the reader on an intellectual journey toward understanding the peasantry.

Part I: Introducing the Book
Foreword by Meghnad Desai
Introduction - Julio Boltvinik and Susan Archer Mann

Part II: Papers
Session I: Theoretical Perspectives on Peasant Poverty and Persistence
1. Poverty and Persistence of the Peasantry. Background Paper - Julio Boltvinik
2. Rethinking Rustic Issues. Contributions to a Theory of Contemporary Peasantry - Armando Bartra
3. From Field to Fork: Labour Power, its Reproduction, and the Persistence of Peasant Poverty - Gordon Welty, Susan Mann, James Dickinson and Emily Blumenfeld
4. Baroque Modernity and Peasant Poverty in the Twenty-first Century - Luis Arizmendi

Session II: Historical and Empirical Approaches
5. Agriculture/industry, Rural/urban, Peasants/workers: Some Reflections on Poverty, Persistence and Change - Henry Bernstein
6. Employment and Rural Poverty in Mexico - Araceli Damián and Edith Pacheco

Session III: Environment, Food Crisis and Peasants
7. From the Persistence of the Peasantry in Capitalism to the Environmentalism of Indigenous Peoples and the Sustainability of Life - Enrique Leff
8. South American Peasants and Poor Farmers Facing Global Environmental Change: A Development Dilemma - Elma Montaña
9. Financialisation of the Food Sector and Peasant's Persistence - Kostas Vergopoulos

Session IV: Policy, Self-reliance and Peasant Poverty
10. The Rise and Fall of the Agrarian Welfare State: Peasants, Globalisation, and the Privatisation of Development - Farshad A. Araghi
11. Overcoming Rural Poverty from the Bottom Up - David Barkin and Blanca Lemus

Part III: Closing the Book
12. Dialogues and Debates on Peasant Poverty and Persistence: Around the Background Paper and Beyond - Julio Boltvinik

Product details

Published	Aug 15 2016
Format	Paperback
Edition	1st
Extent	490
ISBN	9781783608430
Imprint	Zed Books
Illustrations	Tables, black and white 19 ; Figures 21
Dimensions	9 x 6 inches
Series	International Studies in Poverty Research
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Outstanding … on key issues and debates about the peasantry … a highly provocative, stimulating and innovative book in agrarian critical political economy.

Journal of Agrarian Change
An original contribution to past and present debates on the peasantry. A range of issues are discussed from a variety of critical perspectives exploring the causes of poverty as well as alternative developments which offer a better future. This is the text I was searching for in my teaching. Readers will learn much from it.

Cristóbal Kay, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
Brings together different points of view to provide an innovative theoretical background and analyse changes in the condition of the peasantry, as well as suggesting ways to move so many people beyond a poor and precarious existence.

Frederick Magdoff, co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
This stimulating book offers a most exciting renewal of classic debates in Marxian theory over the character and the persistence of peasant production, and illuminates the implications for rural people of the ways in which contemporary capitalism works.

John Harriss, Simon Fraser University
A provocative examination of the persistence of the world's peasantry and rural poverty that explores, challenges, and significantly advances one of the most influential lineages of scholarship that has shaped the contemporary sociology and political economy of agriculture.

Patrick H. Mooney, University of Kentucky
A fascinating set of essays investigating the relationship between peasant persistence and poverty. The editors have assembled an outstanding line-up of respondents to address this puzzle from a variety of perspectives. This is a timely and substantive revival of the classic debate.

Philip McMichael, author of Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions