Page 43 - 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. 43
the integrated peasant economy as a concept in progress
really different parts of Europe and historical periods, including two very
diverse cases that sincerely would not be foreseen, like the economy of the
non-sedentary Sami population in northern Scandinavia and the peasant
economy in southern Japan.
With no pretence of exhausting the many topics of interest contained
in the single contributions to this book, there are some specific aspects that
deserve being at least briefly mentioned in this introductive chapter, be-
cause of their close relation to the evolution of the integrated peasant econ-
omy concept. The time-frame in which it is possible to identify or at least
suppose the existence of peasant market oriented activities and income in-
tegration practices stretches from “at least” the 12th century in Slovenia, as
Matjaž Bizjak shows, to well into the 20th century in the contributions by
Mats Morell on Scandinavia and Žarko Lazarević on Slovenia, where the
support for income integration activities among peasants was even an eco-
nomic policy measure between the end of the 19th and the first half of the
20th centuries.17 Even nowadays similar patterns may be detected (Bojnec).
The most “favourable environment for the integrated peasant economy,”
as Alessio Fornasin puts it, seem to be the mountains, but our perspective
might be partial since most of the case studies we collected here are from
upland regions, while the existence of income integration practices is de-
tectable in the lowlands, too.
As far as the dimension of farms accommodating income integration
practices is concerned, we may perhaps notice a prevalence of small hold-
ings, although Anna Westin and colleagues clearly show how larger farms
were active in more sectors, too, being at the same time more resilient to
crises. Moreover, the interpretation that farm division into smaller units
may be seen as a consequence of more and diverse income opportunities
is confirmed by Jesper Larsson’s Swedish case, where “the household’s de-
pendence on arable land decreased and it became easier to divide the farms
without losing economic viability.” That the integrated peasant economy
is, in fact, a question of opportunity and not only of need is very clear-
ly demonstrated by the example brought by Aleksej Kalc, where income
integration is not consequent to demographic growth or overpopulation,
but rather the other way around. In the villages near Trieste the popula-
tion growth was a response to the rising work opportunities offered by the
quickly developing town: people immigrated to the villages to exploit the
17 These and the following mentions and quotations of authors refer to their respective
chapters in this book.
41
really different parts of Europe and historical periods, including two very
diverse cases that sincerely would not be foreseen, like the economy of the
non-sedentary Sami population in northern Scandinavia and the peasant
economy in southern Japan.
With no pretence of exhausting the many topics of interest contained
in the single contributions to this book, there are some specific aspects that
deserve being at least briefly mentioned in this introductive chapter, be-
cause of their close relation to the evolution of the integrated peasant econ-
omy concept. The time-frame in which it is possible to identify or at least
suppose the existence of peasant market oriented activities and income in-
tegration practices stretches from “at least” the 12th century in Slovenia, as
Matjaž Bizjak shows, to well into the 20th century in the contributions by
Mats Morell on Scandinavia and Žarko Lazarević on Slovenia, where the
support for income integration activities among peasants was even an eco-
nomic policy measure between the end of the 19th and the first half of the
20th centuries.17 Even nowadays similar patterns may be detected (Bojnec).
The most “favourable environment for the integrated peasant economy,”
as Alessio Fornasin puts it, seem to be the mountains, but our perspective
might be partial since most of the case studies we collected here are from
upland regions, while the existence of income integration practices is de-
tectable in the lowlands, too.
As far as the dimension of farms accommodating income integration
practices is concerned, we may perhaps notice a prevalence of small hold-
ings, although Anna Westin and colleagues clearly show how larger farms
were active in more sectors, too, being at the same time more resilient to
crises. Moreover, the interpretation that farm division into smaller units
may be seen as a consequence of more and diverse income opportunities
is confirmed by Jesper Larsson’s Swedish case, where “the household’s de-
pendence on arable land decreased and it became easier to divide the farms
without losing economic viability.” That the integrated peasant economy
is, in fact, a question of opportunity and not only of need is very clear-
ly demonstrated by the example brought by Aleksej Kalc, where income
integration is not consequent to demographic growth or overpopulation,
but rather the other way around. In the villages near Trieste the popula-
tion growth was a response to the rising work opportunities offered by the
quickly developing town: people immigrated to the villages to exploit the
17 These and the following mentions and quotations of authors refer to their respective
chapters in this book.
41
