Agrarian change and peasant studies: changes, continuities and challenges – an introduction

TLDR

Agrarian transformations have rapidly changed over recent decades, reshaping rural poor communities and prompting new critical inquiries into their nature, scope, pace, and policy implications. The collection seeks to advance rethinking of agrarian change by presenting key perspectives, frameworks, and methodologies, and this paper introduces the essays.

Abstract

Agrarian transformations within and across countries have been significantly and dynamically altered during the past few decades compared to previous eras, provoking a variety of reactions from rural poor communities worldwide. The changed and changing agrarian terrain has also influenced recent rethinking in critical inquiry into the nature, scope, pace and direction of agrarian transformations and development. This can be seen in terms of theorising, linking with development policy and politics, and thinking about methodologies. This collection of essays on key perspectives, frameworks and methodologies is an effort to contribute to the larger rethinking. The following paper introduces the collection.