The Concept of Peasantry

UNIT 7 THE CONCEPT OF PEASANTRY*

Contents
7.0 Introduction
7.1 Historical Background
7.2 Peasants and Peasantry
7.3 Definition of Peasants and Peasantry
7.4 Characteristics of Peasants and Peasantry
7.5 Peasants and Primitive Cultivators
7.6 Peasants and Farmers
7.7 Significance of Peasant Studies
7.8 Summary
7.9 References
7.10 Answers to Check Your Progress
Learning Objectives
After going through this unit, you will know:
Who are peasants and what is peasantry;
How to differentiate them from others;
What is the significance of understanding peasants and peasantry as a
category of society; and
The relevance of understanding peasants and peasantry in today’s context.

7.0 INTRODUCTION
In anthropology, the concept of peasant and peasantry, as a category of society,
gained currency with the work of Robert Redfield, who introduced the study of
peasants as part-society and part-culture. Though the definition of peasants was
given by Kroeber (1948) in just one paragraph in his book on anthropology, it
was Redfield who gave central position to study of peasants in anthropology.
This was also one of the early attempts to study complex societies. Traditionally,
anthropologists were studying simple societies that were remotely located and
were largely complete societies. Peasant societies are comparatively complex,
thus the study of complex societies by anthropologists began. Redfield introduced
the concept of folk-urban continuum as a model to analyse complex societies.
This has provided anthropologists greater scope to apply the theory and
methodology that they have developed over the years, to the study of different
strata of humanity. In a way, Redfield initiated the move to expand the scope of
anthropology from the study of simple societies to more complex ones.

It is debatable whether peasants and peasantry are a distinct category or only a

stage in the development of human history that ‘disappeared’ with the
advancement of capitalism, as Hamza Alavi (in Shanin, 1986), Theodor Shanin

* Contributed by Prof. R. Siva Prasad (Retired), Department of Anthropology, University of

Hyderabad, Hyderabad
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Peasants and Peasantry (1986) and others argue. Whatever be the arguments, the concept of peasants
and peasantry has evoked a lot of interest among anthropologists, sociologists,
and other social scientists.

One question that arises is, in view of the sweeping changes that have occurred
in the economy and social structure all across the globe, are peasants or peasantry
relevant in today’s context? If so, how far it is relevant to study peasants and
peasantry as a social category? This unit attempts to answer these questions and
help the reader to have a logical understanding of the concept of peasants and
peasantry and its relevance.

It is wrong to presume that the study of peasants and peasantry is no longer

useful due to the many changes that have taken place in the economic, societal,
and cultural realms. Birgit Muller points out, “After a long period of silence and
disinterest, the term “peasant” entered centerstage again in 2013, when peasant
organizations convinced the Human Rights Council in Geneva to initiate
negotiations toward establishing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. … Anthropologists have
further asked whether the term “peasant” has become attractive again because it
has evolved to become an aspirational category or ideal type linked to the political
claim of “food sovereignty”: the right of “peoples” to define or control their
food system” (2018: 1).

7.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

To understand the concept of peasants and peasantry, we need to understand the
historical background under which the peasants existed. Muller observed that,
“The term ‘peasant’ occurred in Old Middle English to designate people who
worked the land and were tied to it. The term is derived from the Old French
word paisent (country dweller). Its translation into Spanish, campesino, has similar
roots in the word campo (countryside), whereas the German bauer (from the Old
German term bur) designated a social category different from the nobles and the
town dwellers, with specific rights and obligations often subordinated to landlords,
and inferior to townspeople (Burger). … In medieval societies of Europe, peasants
were tied as persons to their lords. This lasted until 1861 in Russia, where the
peasants constituted a “social estate,” bound to landlords’ properties with no
right to geographical mobility. In much of Latin America, de jure and de facto
systems of debt peonage and unpaid labor persisted until at least the mid-twentieth
century; these were called huasipungo in Ecuador, colonato in Bolivia and Central
America, yanaconaje in Peru, inquilinaje in Chile, and cambão in Brazil. ... The
“peasant condition” is thus historically one of “subordination, domination, and
exploitation” (2018: 1-2). This points out to the historical linkage of peasants
with feudalism in the medieval period in the West.

Redfield (1960) observed that the hallmark of civilisation is the emergence of

peasants. In a way, peasants are linked to the growth of urban places, as the
surplus extracted from the peasantry was used on the maintenance of living
standards of the feudal lords and the hierarchies of governance. In fact, in many
cultures, as observed earlier, peasants are regarded as a stage of development
linked to urban places, be they towns or cities. For instance, in the middle ages
in Europe, serfs engaged in agriculture grouped around the manorial class.
Similarly marginal farmers living in villages close to small towns or cities, sold
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their products there are regarded as peasants. In India and elsewhere peasants The Concept of Peasantry
have been present over a long period.

It was Redfield who brought peasants into the fold of anthropology and sociology.
As observed earlier, he also brought in the concept of folk-urban continuum as a
theoretical argument of the typology that he devised. More importantly, it opened
a window for the anthropologists to study more complex societies using their
traditional methodologies, modifying them suitably. Traditionally anthropologists
were studying social associations and institutions like the family, marriage,
kinship, religion and social organisation. These are found to be important among
peasant societies and thus, studying peasant societies became attractive to
anthropologists. Also, it has provided a larger canvass to anthropologists than
just studying remote tribal societies, which anyway are in the process of
transforming into peasant societies. It also provided them an arena to test their
theoretical formulations.

Is peasantry a distinct social category or only a part of the historical stage of

feudalism? Some believe that peasants are bound to disappear with the
advancement of capitalism, while others argue that the peasantry has a distinct
economic logic in contrast to the logic of capitalism. They argue that peasants
have long survived capitalism and continue to exist. They have also attempted to
demonstrate that the peasant rebellions in the 20th century have changed the course
of world history (Eric Wolf in Shanin, 1987). Many argue that despite the
heterogeneous nature of the peasantry, peasants form a large part of the world’s
humanity and share some common characteristics, though there may be regional
variations. Hence, it is worthwhile to understand from an anthropological or
sociological point of view, about peasants and peasantry.

7.2 PEASANTS AND PEASANTRY

There is a clear link between peasants and market towns. Redfield unequivocally
stated that, “There were no peasants before the first cities” (1953: 31). Kroeber
was the first to identify the link between the peasants and the city. This is very
clear from his now-famous definition of peasants (1948: 284). This clearly
indicates that peasants are linked to markets. However, they are not swept by
markets as they are, in the words of James Scott (in Shanin, 1987), largely a
moral economy guided by a distinct economic logic.

As mentioned earlier, peasants are a heterogeneous group. In this context, Redfield

observed that, “Peasant society and culture have something generic about it …
(that is) … an arrangement of humanity with some similarities all over the world”
(1956: 25). In other words, despite diversity, peasants share many common
features. Burton Stein, another well-known anthropologist, said, “Peasant agrarian
relationships are aspects of social and cultural systems; they are human adaptations
to the natural environment within a social and cultural framework” (1980: 16).
This implies that peasants are a social category with significant features in
common across the globe spanning rural areas, yet linked to urban centres.

Peasantry and gentry are regarded as two contrasts. Gentry is the class of people
just below the category of nobility, usually referred to as landed gentry, while
the peasantry work for the landed as they are the underdogs.

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Peasants and Peasantry Check Your Progress
1) Who said that there were no peasants before the first cities?
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7.3 DEFINITION OF PEASANTS AND PEASANTRY

The credit for defining peasants goes to A.L. Kroeber. According to him, “Peasants
constitute part-societies with part-cultures. They are definitely rural – yet live in
relation to market towns; they form a class segment of a larger population which
usually contains also urban centers… They lack isolation, the political autonomy,
and self-sufficiency of tribal populations; but their local units retain much of
their old identity, integration, and attachment to soil and cults” (1948: 284).

The peasantry can be defined in terms of their subordination to the groups of

outsiders who are not cultivators but control them through different means. As a
result of this, peasantry not only has to produce for their own sustenance but also
for the demands of the outsiders. They always struggle to keep a balance between
these two, their own, and the demands of the outsiders. Peasants are always
regarded as a source of cheap labour which can be used to increase the power of
those who control them. This clearly indicates their underdog position (Wolf:
1946: 13).

Susana Narotzky observed that, “Certain aspects have been common to all
attempts at defining peasantries: agricultural production, ownership of some
means of production, a form of control over land and family labor, an orientation
to household and community reproduction, and subjection to dominant groups
that appropriate surplus. …The concept of peasant was often imbued with an
idea of a natural economy. It described peasants as members of self-sufficient
households that could endlessly reproduce their means of livelihood and retain
the sense of worth and purpose resulting from a nonalienated relationship with
nature and production. Although admittedly part of the larger society, peasants
were understood as forming part of communities, which in turn were pictured as
united by strong solidarity ties, jointly struggling against the outside aggressions
of an external power exacting surplus” (2016: 303). This description by Susana
Narotzky provides, in general terms, a summary view of peasants and peasantry.

Theodor Shanin (1975 and 1987) considers peasants as ‘a mystification’ because

in any given village there are rich and poor, landowners and tenant households
as well as hired people, thereby one does not find ‘any continuity of smooth
gradations’. He considers how history added “its dimension of diversity for even
‘the same’ would not be the same in different years, decades and centuries.” In
support of this, he provides examples of feudal Burgundy, slash and burn bushland
of Tanzania, merchandised Punjab, etc. Thus, he pointed out the problem in
defining the term peasants.
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John Embree in 1939, in his writing about a Japanese village, described peasants The Concept of Peasantry
as a distinct category. He pointed out the similarities and differences between
peasant and pre-literate groups. According to him, “A peasant community
possesses many of the characteristics of a pre-literate society, e.g., an intimate
local group, strong kinship ties, and periodic gatherings in honor of some deified
aspect of the environment” (1939: xi). However, he pointed out the important
differences of peasants from the simple societies wherein the peasant groups are
regarded as a “part of a larger nation which controls its economic life, enforces a
code of law, from above, and, more recently, requires education in national
schools” (1939: xi-xii). He has also observed that “The economic basis of life is
not conditioned by the local requirements … The farmer’s crop is adjusted to the
needs of the state” (1939: xii). Another important dimension that he has brought
out to show the lack of independence from outside influence is the case of religion
and rituals. He observed that “While full of local variations, the rituals and festivals
are not indigenous to the community nor is the community spiritually self-
sufficient” (1939: xii). This highlights the dependence of the peasant on the others
for various aspects.

Eric Wolf tried to define peasants more narrowly as compared to scholars like
Firth who tried to define peasants in a much broader sense of producers like the
fishermen and artisans. Firth justified his use of the term arguing that “Like the
European peasantry the Oriental peasantry are communities of producers on a
small scale, with simple equipment and market organisation, often relying on
what they produce for their subsistence” (1946: 22). Eric Wolf (1955: 453-540)
argued that, “we must remember that definitions are tools of thought, not eternal
verities”. He wanted to define the term “peasant” as strictly as possible. He used
three distinctions as the basis for such his definition.
he looks at peasants as only agricultural producers,
he distinguishes peasants from tenants, as, unlike the tenant, the peasant has
effective control on land, and
he believes the peasant aims at subsistence, not at reinvestment. The starting
point for the peasant is the needs that are defined by his culture. The peasant
sells cash crops only to get money to buy goods and services that he does
not produce or have. In contrast, a farmer looks at agriculture as an enterprise.
Thus, for Wolf “the term ‘peasant’ indicates a structural relationship, not a
particular culture content.”

7.4 CHARACTERISTICS OF PEASANTS AND

PEASANTRY
Theodor Shanin (1987) has observed four distinct features of the peasant society:
They are:
1) The family farm is regarded as a basic unit of a multidimensional social
organisation and production, labour and consumption revolve around it,
2) Land husbandry is the main source of livelihood that forms the basis for
providing the consumption needs,
3) The traditional culture related to the way of life of small communities is
specific to peasant societies, and 103
Peasants and Peasantry 4) The peasants are regarded as in an underdog position and are dominated by
outsiders who wield complete control over the peasants in all respects, be it
economically, politically, socially, or culturally.

It is important to understand what distinguishes peasant societies from others.

They are distinguished from the others based on six important characteristics
(Shanin, 1987):
1) Peasants are largely involved in extensive self-employment as they use their
family labour in their production activities. Also, they have control over
their means of production, and the production is largely for self-consumption.
They have multi-dimensional occupational expertise (Galeski, 1972). As
Eric Wolf (1966) observed, the emphasis is on growing rather than on
manufacturing with the economic system maintaining a particular balance
of agriculture, animal husbandry, gathering, and crafts. As Chayanov (in
Shanin, 1987) noted, the performance calculations are distinctly different
from capitalistic enterprises.
2) There is a greater amount of similarity among the peasants concerning
patterns and inclinations of political organisation. For instance, systems of
brokers and patronage, the tendency for vertical division and factionalism,
and a place for banditry and guerrilla struggle.
3) There is a greater amount of similarity between norms and cognitions among
peasant societies. They are regarded as traditional and conformist in their
rationalisations, with the predominance of oral traditions and specific
‘cognitive maps’ like the circular perception of time, patterns of socialisation,
training, ideological tendencies.
4) The characteristic units of social organisation and its functioning also show
similarity among the peasants across the globe.
5) One can easily identify analytically specific social dynamics of peasant
societies, explicitly concerning social production, such as production and
reproduction of social relations, patterns of inheritance and succession.
6) The causes of structural transformation and its patterns have something
generic and specific to the peasants.

Given this, it is important to understand the difference between peasants and

‘primitive’ cultivators. This distinction will make us understand the concept of
peasant and peasantry as distinctly different from primitive cultivators and other
producers.
Check Your Progress
2) What is the view of Eric Wolf in defining peasants?

7.5 PEASANTS AND PRIMITIVE CULTIVATORS

Eric Wolf (1946) made an important distinction between peasants and primitive
cultivators and also how peasants are different from farmers. Peasants are a part
of a ‘larger, compound society’ which is distinctly different from ‘primitive band/
tribe’, though primitives rarely ‘live in isolation’. It is important to remember
that primitive cultivators or producers have control over the means of production
104 that also includes their own labour. They indulge in exchanging their labour for
‘the culturally defined equivalent goods and services of others’. During the process The Concept of Peasantry
of cultural evolution, Wolf argues that “such simple systems have been superseded
by others in which control of the means of production, including the disposition
of human labour, passes from the hand of primary producer into the hands of
groups that do not carry on the productive process themselves, but assume instead
special executive and administrative functions, backed by the use of force.” Here
‘goods and services are furnished to a center and only later redirected’ (1946: 3).

On the contrary, as observed by Eric Wolf, peasants are “rural cultivators whose
surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers that uses the surpluses
both to under-write its own standards of living and to distribute the remainder to
groups in society that do not farm but must be fed for their specific goods and
services in turn.” (1946: 3-4).
Eric Wolf (1946) states that the process of transition of primitives to peasants is
one of simple to complex social order. He makes a comparison between peasants
and primitive cultivators in terms of three types of surpluses:
1) replacement fund,
2) ceremonial fund, and
3) fund of rent.
He argues that, “cultivators must not only furnish themselves with minimum
caloric rations; they must also raise enough food beyond this to provide sufficient
seed for next year’s crop, or to provide feed for their livestock. So, this amount is
not absolute surpluses” (1946: 6). In fact, ‘replacement fund’ is what the cultivator
needs to replace his ‘minimum equipment’ required ‘for both production and
consumption’. Replacement fund should be looked at in terms of the cultural
workout rather than purely technical arrangement. Similarly, the cultivators have
to allocate their resources for ceremonies at the individual as well as at the
community level that can be termed as a ceremonial fund, which is also not a
surplus in the real sense. These two are common for both types of cultivators,
primitive and peasant. But what differentiates the two is the fund of rent that is
absent among the primitive cultivators. However, now the primitives are turning
into real peasants. It is important to note that the peasants are the producers of
social wealth but are downgraded to a subordinate position. The peasantry is
defined principally in terms of its ‘subordinate relationship to a group of
controlling outsiders’. The peasantry is always ‘forced to maintain balance
between its own demands and the demands of the outsiders and will be subject
to the tensions produced by this struggle to keep the balance’ (Wolf, 1946: 13).
For the outsider, the peasant is a source of labour to ‘increase his fund of power’.

7.6 PEASANTS AND FARMERS

Peasants are regarded as “settled agriculturalists who employ a low level of
technology” in pursuit of their agricultural operations. Eric Wolf (1946) looked
at the peasants as ‘rural cultivators’ raising crops and livestock and are distinctly
different from farmers. The important distinction is that the peasants are not
dependent on the market for their survival, rather the market is dependent on the
production of the peasants. Peasants always had control over their production
and inputs, including labour. Their major focus is to produce primarily for self-
consumption, and additionally for the non-producing dominant outsiders who
also need to be fed. 105
Peasants and Peasantry On the contrary, farmers produce for the market and, hence, produce crops with
an eye on the market. Therefore, if there are any fluctuations in the market a
farmer’s living gets affected. A farmer is dependent on the market for different
inputs, like seeds, fertilisers, credit, availability of labour during the season, and
any fluctuations in the market affect the farmers badly. That is why we see today
different development (economic) initiatives by the governments to help the
farmers on various counts since their production is important for the society at
large.
Check Your Progress
3) What is the difference between the peasant and the farmer?
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7.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF PEASANT STUDIES

Eric Wolf, a pioneer in peasant studies, points out that the enlargement of the
scope of peasant studies has had three important effects.
It has brought about a notable convergence in the efforts of sociologists,
anthropologists, political scientists, and of economic and social historians.
One by-product of this convergence has been a common interest in patron-
client systems .
It has prompted a significant increase – not perhaps in wide-ranging, global
theory – but in studies falling within the ‘middle range’ between theoretical
efforts cast at high levels of abstraction and narrowly conceived local studies.
These studies all evidence a growth in sophistication both in the questions
asked and in the kinds of materials utilized to provide the answers ... Thus
concern with the problems of peasantry has become one of the growth points
of interdisciplinary comparative research, less through institutional
organization than through convergent interests shared by a number of
scholars.

“The appearance of Etudes Rurales in Paris, of the Journal of Peasant Studies in

London, and of the Peasant Newsletter, based at the University of Pittsburgh,
further aids in the spread of this growing network of communication” (1975:
386).

The study of peasant societies and village studies in India has thrown out many
previously established concepts and provided an in-depth understanding of the
functioning of village society and its social structure. This has also helped social
scientists to understand the nuances of rural society, economy, polity, value system
etc., that has significance for rural development in India and elsewhere. Given
this, studying of peasant societies is of greater relevance today than earlier. Even
when we find the peasants have, to some extent, turned into farmers, their attitude
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continues to be of peasants. Their value system, mindset, production outlook The Concept of Peasantry
continues to be still in the mould of peasants. Given this, it is all the more important
for us to study the peasant societies for better planning and policymaking.

7.8 SUMMARY
Peasants form a large section of humanity. Thanks to the efforts of Redfield,
they have now become a subject of interest for anthropologists and sociologists.
Anthropologists who were earlier studying the pre-literate societies found it
somewhat easier to switch over to studying peasant societies. This has opened
up a new window for anthropologists to study complex societies. This has been
beneficial both theoretically and methodologically. New concepts like the folk-
urban continuum have evolved to look at the linkages between the rural and
urban social structures.

This unit attempted to explain the concept of peasant and peasantry and the way
different scholars have tried to define them. Most prominent among them are
Kroeber, Redfield, Erik Wolf and Theodor Shanin. Peasants are considered as
sub-ordinate to the outsiders who control them and extract both their produce
and labour for their self-aggrandisement. An attempt has also been made to
understand the difference between peasants and primitive cultivators. We also
tried to understand the characteristics of peasants and the debates about whether
peasants are a distinct category or will disappear with the advancement of
capitalism.

We have tried to understand the relevance of peasant studies in today’s context

and looked at the way the peasant mindset works. It is pointed out that there is a
greater need today to study peasants as it will be useful for policy and planning,
especially in rural development. Peasant studies become all the more important
as we need to understand the way social and economic transformation of the
society at large has impacted the peasants and agricultural production.

7.9 REFERENCES
Birgit Müller. (2018). Peasants. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
Hilary Callan (Ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/
abs/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2150. Accessed on March 18, 2020.
Embree, John. F. (1939). Suye Mura: A Japanese Village. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. https://ia802903.us.archive.org/14/items/
in.ernet.dli.2015.274734/2015.274734.A-Japanese.pdf. Accessed on March 18,
2020.
Firth, Raymond. (1946). Malay Fishermen: Their Peasant Economy. London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd.
Kroeber, A.L. (1948). Anthropology. New York: Harcourt-Brace.
Narotzky, Susana. (2016). Where Have All the Peasants Gone? Annual Review
of Anthropology, 45: 301-318.
Potter, Jack M., May N. Diaz, and George M. Foster (Eds.). (1967). Peasant
Society: A Reader. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company.

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Peasants and Peasantry Redfield, R. (1960). The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shanin, Theodor. (1975). Peasant and Political Mobilization: Introduction.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 17 (4), pp. 385-388. http://
www.jstor.com/stable/178297. Accessed on March 18, 2020.
Shanin, Theodor. (Ed.). (1987). Peasants and Peasant Societies: Selected
Readings. New York: Oxford Basil Blackwell.
Stein, Burton. (1980). Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, Eric. (1955). Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary Discussion.
American Anthropologist, Vol 57, pp. 4452-471. http://www.jstor.com/stable/
665442. Accessed on March 18, 2020.
Wolf, Eric. (1966). The Peasants. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc.
Wolf, Eric. (1975). Peasants and Political Mobilization: Introduction. Comparative
Studies in Society and History, Vol. 17 (4), pp. 385-388. http://www.jstor.com/
stable/178297. Accessed on March 18, 2020.

7.10 ANSWERS TO CHECK PROGRESS

1) Robert Redfield.
2) Eric Wolf thought that the definition of peasant should be narrowed down.
3) Peasant production is for self-consumption while the farmer produces for
the market.

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