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Peasants and Revolutionaries: Some Critical Comments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Michael Redclift
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Extract

Professor Joan Thirsk has recently argued that the history of the peasant is not one history, but several. The demise of the peasant, insisted Professor Thirsk cogently, should be seen against the background of particular farming systems and the stages in their evolution. However obvious this point might be to an historian of sixteenth-century England, it is often lost on sociologists of contemporary Latin America. All too often attempts are made to assess the revolutionary potential of the Latin American ‘peasant’ without distinguishing clearly enough between sections of the rural population, and placing them within the context of the land-tenure system. Failure to distinguish between different groups of peasant farmers has important implications not only for academic research but also for Government policy.

Type
Review Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , May 1975 , pp. 135 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Joan, Thirsk, ‘The Disappearance of the English Peasantry’, paper delivered to the Peasants’ Seminar of the Centre of International and Area Studies, University of London, 15 03 1974.Google Scholar

2 Norman, Long and David, Winder, ‘An Analysis of the Policy and Social Consequences of Peasant Community Reform in a Smallholder Zone of Central Peru’, paper presented to the symposium on ‘Anthropology and Development Studies’, Meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists, Oxford, 07 1973.Google Scholar

3 George, M. Foster, ‘Peasant Society and the Image of the Limited Good’, American Anthropologist, 62 (1965);Google ScholarGeorge, M. Foster, ‘Interpersonal Relations in Peasant Society’, Human Organisation, 19 (1960);Google ScholarWolf, E. R., ‘Types of Latin American Peasantry’, American Anthropologist, 57 (1955);CrossRefGoogle ScholarWolf, E. R., ‘Closed Corporate Communities in Mesoamerica and Central Java’, Southwest Journal of Anthropology, 13, (1957);CrossRefGoogle ScholarWolf, E. R., Peasants (Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1966).Google Scholar

4 Henry, Landsberger (ed.), Latin American Peasant Movements (Cornell U.P., 1969);Google ScholarAnibal, Quijano, ‘Contemporary Peasant Movements’, in Lipset, S. M. and Aldo, Solari (eds.), Elites in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 1967);Google ScholarGerrit, Huizer, ‘“Resistance to change“ and Radical Peasant Mobilisation: Foster and Erasmus reconsidered’, Human Organisation, 29, 4 (1970).Google Scholar

5 James, Petras, and Hugo, Zemelman Merino, Peasants in Revolt: A Chilean Case Study, 1965–71 (Austin and London, University of Texas Press, 1973), 154 pp., £ 2.90.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. xi.

7 Ibid., p. 32.

8 Ibid., p. 33.

9 Ibid., p. 33.

10 Solon, Barraclough and Affonso, A., ‘Agrarian Reform in Chile 1970–1972’ Land Reform, no. 1 (FAO, Rome, 1973).Google Scholar

11 Petras and Zemelman, op. cit., p. xiii.

12 Petras and Zemelman, op. cit., p. 85.

13 Petras and Zemelman, op. cit., p. 3.

14 David, Ronfeldt, Atencingo, The Politics of Agrarian Struggle in a Mexican Ejido (Stanford University Press, 1973), 283 pp., £ 5.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Ibid. p. 3.

17 Ibid p. 31.

18 Gerrit, Huizer, Peasant Rebellion in Latin America (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1973), 183 pp. £ 0.40, p. 1.Google Scholar

19 The best discussion I know of this issue is by Orlando, Fals Borda, ‘Pautas conservadoras en el salto a propietario’, Les ProblÈmes Agraires des AmÈriques Latines (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1967).Google Scholar

20 Two recent contributions to this discussion are: Heath, D. B., ‘New Patterns for Old: Changing Patron-Client Relationships in the Bolivian Yungas’, Ethnology, 12 (1973), 75–98;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDaniel, Heyduk, ‘The Hacienda System and Agrarian Reform in Highland Bolivia: A Re-Evaluation’, Ethnology, 13 (1974), 70–81.Google Scholar

21 Orlando, Fals Borda, Cooperatives and Rural Development in Latin America (U.N.R.S.D. Geneva, 1971), 147 pp., n.p.s.Google Scholar

22 Sutti, R. Ortiz, Uncertainties in Peasant Farming, A Colombian Case (The Athlone Press, University of London, 1973), 294 pp., £4;Google ScholarFrank, Cancian, Change and Uncertainty in a Peasant Economy (Stanford University Press, 1972), 208 pp., $7.95.Google Scholar

23 Ortiz, op. cit., p. 272.

24 Marlin, D. Clausner, Rural Santo Domingo: Settled, Unsettled and Resettled (Temple University Press, 1973), p. 323. $11.50.Google Scholar

25 John, Gerassi (ed.), Camilo Torres: Revolutionary Priest (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1971), 463 pp., £0.70;Google ScholarZeitlin, M. (ed.), Revolutionary Writings: Father Camilo Torres (New York, Harper and Row, 1972), 372 pp., $;2.95;Google ScholarHugo, Blanco, Land or Death (Pathfinder Press, New York, 1972), 178 pp. £1.05.Google Scholar