Page 204 - 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. 204
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
(Coppola 1991), and focusing on Slovenian preindustrial peasant activities,
an interpretative category, defined integrated peasant economy, has been
proposed (Panjek 2015). In the integrated peasant economy, the activities
of peasant society mixed different sectors, they were market-oriented, and
gave the chance to integrate their income by improving the local economy’s
flexibility. As integrated peasant economy activities cross through bound-
aries between the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, it reveals itself
as a concept that can include and resolve the issues of the historiographi-
cal debate about pluriactivity. The debate of the eighties, in fact, concerned
with the implications of the Mendels’ model of proto-industrialisation, try-
ing to give alternative interpretations to the relationship between proto-in-
dustry and agriculture that in Mendels’ model remained unclear.
At this point, one can legitimately wonder whether peasants’ forest ac-
tivities can be involved in the notion of integrated peasant economy. As
specified in the above-mentioned examples, wood cutting and its sale were
market-oriented (in a period in which timber and wood fuel demand was
increasing in urban markets). Moreover, this activity bridged the gap be-
tween different sectors, also because some timber was used to make prod-
ucts for the secondary sector, even if this process was still led by artis-
anal small producers. It remains unclear how much this activity improved
“peasant flexibility”, that is if this kind of integration was structural or oc-
casional, and, consequently, how much it contributed to increase the carry-
ing-capacity of the environment in which peasants lived.
The notion integrated peasant economy represents a step forward that
encourages a renewal of the studies on peasants’ economy. Moreover, it
seems to be in line with the analysis that, within recent studies carried out
through a new theoretical approach which joins rural sociology and the so-
ciology of development, refers to pluriactivity as one of the factors that re-
duce “dependence upon banking circuits and moneylenders” and provides
further resources, also in terms of major autonomy, the peasants societies
in the age of globalisation (van der Ploeg 2008, 33).
Bibliography
Archival sources
ASR: Archivio di Stato di Roma.
Ministero del Commercio, belle arti, industria, agricoltura e lavori pubbli-
ci.
202
(Coppola 1991), and focusing on Slovenian preindustrial peasant activities,
an interpretative category, defined integrated peasant economy, has been
proposed (Panjek 2015). In the integrated peasant economy, the activities
of peasant society mixed different sectors, they were market-oriented, and
gave the chance to integrate their income by improving the local economy’s
flexibility. As integrated peasant economy activities cross through bound-
aries between the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, it reveals itself
as a concept that can include and resolve the issues of the historiographi-
cal debate about pluriactivity. The debate of the eighties, in fact, concerned
with the implications of the Mendels’ model of proto-industrialisation, try-
ing to give alternative interpretations to the relationship between proto-in-
dustry and agriculture that in Mendels’ model remained unclear.
At this point, one can legitimately wonder whether peasants’ forest ac-
tivities can be involved in the notion of integrated peasant economy. As
specified in the above-mentioned examples, wood cutting and its sale were
market-oriented (in a period in which timber and wood fuel demand was
increasing in urban markets). Moreover, this activity bridged the gap be-
tween different sectors, also because some timber was used to make prod-
ucts for the secondary sector, even if this process was still led by artis-
anal small producers. It remains unclear how much this activity improved
“peasant flexibility”, that is if this kind of integration was structural or oc-
casional, and, consequently, how much it contributed to increase the carry-
ing-capacity of the environment in which peasants lived.
The notion integrated peasant economy represents a step forward that
encourages a renewal of the studies on peasants’ economy. Moreover, it
seems to be in line with the analysis that, within recent studies carried out
through a new theoretical approach which joins rural sociology and the so-
ciology of development, refers to pluriactivity as one of the factors that re-
duce “dependence upon banking circuits and moneylenders” and provides
further resources, also in terms of major autonomy, the peasants societies
in the age of globalisation (van der Ploeg 2008, 33).
Bibliography
Archival sources
ASR: Archivio di Stato di Roma.
Ministero del Commercio, belle arti, industria, agricoltura e lavori pubbli-
ci.
202
