the Institute of Development Studies and partner organisations
Browse
- No file added yet -

Pastoralists and Peasants: Perspectives on Agrarian Change

Download (3.29 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2024-09-05, 21:44 authored by Ian Scoones
For many years, studies of peasants and pastoralists have run in parallel, creating mutual blind-spots. This article argues that, despite contrasting research traditions and conceptual framings, there are many commonalities. The classic problematics of agrarian studies – around production, accumulation and politics – apply as much to pastoralists as they do to peasants. Processes of social differentiation and class formation, the role of wage labour and questions around mobilisation and politics are consistently relevant. However, a reflection on a large literature on pastoralism across nine world regions reveals that there are nevertheless some important contrasts with classic representations of a settled peasantry. These are: living with and off uncertainty; mobility to respond to variability; flexible land control and new forms of tenure; dynamic social formations; collective social relations for a new moral economy; engaging with complex markets and a new politics for a transforming world. The article concludes by arguing that, under contemporary conditions, these are all important for understanding settled agrarian systems too, as today pastoralists and peasants face many of the same challenges. These seven themes, the article argues, offer a new set of lenses for examining pastoral and peasant settings alike, helping to expand perspectives in agrarian studies.

Funding

Default funder

History

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Citation

Scoones, I. (2020) 'Pastoralists and Peasants: Perspectives on Agrarian Change', The Journal of Peasant Studies, doi:10.1080/03066150.2020.1802249

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

IDS Item Types

Article

Copyright holder

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Language

en

IDS team

Resource Politics

Project identifier

Default project::9ce4e4dc-26e9-4d78-96e9-15e4dcac0642::600

Usage metrics

    @ IDS Research

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC