Suchergebnisse

The paper presents a critical review of two major approaches to the analysis of agrarian societies in light of evidence taken from the scholarly literature on Africa. The first approach posits the existence of "natural" societies; the second, of "peasant" societies. The existence of such "precapitalist" societies is often invoked to account for patterns of change in contemporary rural societies. The author argues that these approaches are overly culturally and economically determined, and that they undervalue the importance of the state. Many of the so-called precapitalist features of these societies are themselves found to be products of the societies' encounter with agents of capitalism. Moreover, many result from the efforts of states to secure domination and control over rural populations.

Recent micro-level studies of rural communities in the developing areas address themselves to three basic issues: (1) What are the major external forces that determine the welfare of persons residing in rural areas? (2) How do peasants respond to these forces? (3) What ethical evaluations are to be made of the outcome of the encounter between peasant communities and the forces intruding upon them from their environment? By addressing these questions, and by formulating and utilizing explicit models of peasant behavior, these studies provide a coherent approach to the study of the developing areas.