Page 14 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 14
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
Introduction
By addressing problems in the thematic area stretching between peas-
ant subsistence and economic development, our questions are deeply root-
ed in the economic, agrarian, social, and rural historiography. Within ru-
ral history research there has been a shift towards the dynamic aspects in
peasant economy and society, combined with a growing relevance of com-
parative approaches. On the other hand there is a remarkable tradition in
addressing the questions regarding the self-sustainability of peasants, the
small dimension of holdings, peasant market relations and income integra-
tion. In many European regions the holdings were not sufficient enough
to provide the necessary means of subsistence to peasant households. This
is well known in upland areas in particular, although not limited to them,
where the population engaged in a wide range of activities in order to gain
more income. The basic assumption here is that different income sources
were part of a comprehensive economic strategy, in which peasants count-
ed on and exploited the opportunities of access to alternative activities, and
that the peasant economy based on income integration is to be regarded as
a whole, as a system.
A basic effort we made was to render agency to the peasant, to recog-
nise the peasants a role of active actors in rural history, and perhaps not
only rural. The main goal was to develop and test a conceptualisation of
peasant economy that would allow a step forward from terminology and
models with a more or less restricted applicability, enabling at the same
time a better comparability among regions and cases as well as through
time. The starting point was represented by the acknowledgement, indeed
well present in scholarship but more rarely brought to its interpretative con-
sequences, that in several areas peasant populations did not live simply on
subsistence agriculture but showed rather diversified and complex income
patterns. The proposed term to define this is integrated peasant economy, a
concept emerged from the conjunction between Slovenian and Italian his-
toriographies, which was then confronted with the Swedish scholarly expe-
rience. But the very beginning had indeed been in Slovenia, as I am going to
present in the first part, followed by a first definition of the integrated peas-
ant economy, which will then be put in comparison with some other inter-
pretations, models, and terms. In the last part the actual state of the inte-
grated peasant economy concept will be sketched, as it developed through
12
Introduction
By addressing problems in the thematic area stretching between peas-
ant subsistence and economic development, our questions are deeply root-
ed in the economic, agrarian, social, and rural historiography. Within ru-
ral history research there has been a shift towards the dynamic aspects in
peasant economy and society, combined with a growing relevance of com-
parative approaches. On the other hand there is a remarkable tradition in
addressing the questions regarding the self-sustainability of peasants, the
small dimension of holdings, peasant market relations and income integra-
tion. In many European regions the holdings were not sufficient enough
to provide the necessary means of subsistence to peasant households. This
is well known in upland areas in particular, although not limited to them,
where the population engaged in a wide range of activities in order to gain
more income. The basic assumption here is that different income sources
were part of a comprehensive economic strategy, in which peasants count-
ed on and exploited the opportunities of access to alternative activities, and
that the peasant economy based on income integration is to be regarded as
a whole, as a system.
A basic effort we made was to render agency to the peasant, to recog-
nise the peasants a role of active actors in rural history, and perhaps not
only rural. The main goal was to develop and test a conceptualisation of
peasant economy that would allow a step forward from terminology and
models with a more or less restricted applicability, enabling at the same
time a better comparability among regions and cases as well as through
time. The starting point was represented by the acknowledgement, indeed
well present in scholarship but more rarely brought to its interpretative con-
sequences, that in several areas peasant populations did not live simply on
subsistence agriculture but showed rather diversified and complex income
patterns. The proposed term to define this is integrated peasant economy, a
concept emerged from the conjunction between Slovenian and Italian his-
toriographies, which was then confronted with the Swedish scholarly expe-
rience. But the very beginning had indeed been in Slovenia, as I am going to
present in the first part, followed by a first definition of the integrated peas-
ant economy, which will then be put in comparison with some other inter-
pretations, models, and terms. In the last part the actual state of the inte-
grated peasant economy concept will be sketched, as it developed through
12
