© 2010 – Routledge
Agrarian transformations within and across countries have been significantly and dynamically altered during the past few decades compared to previous eras, provoking a variety of reactions from rural poor communities worldwide. The recent convergence of various crises – financial, food, energy and environmental – has put the nexus between ‘rural development’ and ‘development in general’ back onto the center stage of theoretical, policy and political agendas in the world today. Confronting these issues will require (re)engaging with critical theories, taking politics seriously, and utilizing rigorous and appropriate research methodologies. These are the common messages and implications of the various contributions to this collection in the context of a scholarship that is critical in two senses: questioning prescriptions from mainstream perspectives and interrogating popular conventions in radical thinking.
This book focuses on key perspectives, frameworks and methodologies in agrarian change and peasant studies. The contributors are leading scholars in the field of rural development studies: Henry Bernstein, Terence J. Byres, Saturnino M. Borras Jr, Marc Edelman, Cristóbal Kay, Benedict Kerkvliet, Philip McMichael, Shahra Razavi, Ian Scoones and Teodor Shanin.
This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.
1. Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies: Changes, Continuities and Challenges – an Introduction Saturnino M. Borras Jr. 2. The Landlord Class, Peasant Differentiation, Class Struggle and the Transition to Capitalism: England, France and Prussia Compared Terence J. Byres 3. V. I. Lenin and A. V. Chayanov: Looking Back, Looking Forward Henry Bernstein 4. Chayanov’s Treble Death and Tenuous Resurrection: An Essay about Understanding, about Roots of Plausibility and about Rural Russia Teodor Shanin 5. Development Strategies and Rural Development: Exploring Synergies, Eradicating Poverty Cristóbal Kay 6. A Food Regime Genealogy Philip McMichael 7. Livelihoods Perspectives and Rural Development Ian Scoones 8. Engendering the Political Economy of Agrarian Change Shahra Razavi 9. Everyday Politics in Peasant Societies (and Ours) Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet 10. Synergies and Tensions between Rural Social Movements and Professional Researchers Marc Edelman
Critical Agrarian Studies is the new accompanying book series to the Journal of Peasant Studies. It publishes selected special issues of the journal and, occasionally, books that offer major contributions in the field of critical agrarian studies. The book series builds on the long and rich history of the journal and its former accompanying book series, the Library of Peasant Studies (1973-2008) which had published several important monographs and special-issues-as-books.