External Influences: Robert Redfield and the Concept of Peasant society

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Discovery of peasant society as a subject of study
  3. Emergence of Peasant as an analytical category
  4. Robert Redfield: Conceptualisation and Reconceptualization of Peasantry
  5. Redfield tradition and discourse on Peasantry in India
  6. Conclusion

Introduction

The concept of peasant society or peasantry is debatable in the social sciences, especially when it comes to societies like India. Even social anthropologists and sociologists in India, whose research on peasant society is of great interest, disagree about the definition of the term. Although Indian society has traditionally been described as a peasant society, the concept of peasant society did not come to the attention of scholars until the middle of the twentieth century, when American and Western anthropologists, responding to the growing interest in anthropology in the comparative study of human conditions, discovered peasantry. In fact, many of Robert Redfield's western followers and Indian scholars used his studies in Mexico and his conceptualization of peasant society as a guide to view the Indian situation in a fresh way. To better understand terms like "peasant," "peasantry," and "peasant society," it is crucial to comprehend the intellectual foundations of Redfield's conceptualization of peasant society and the discourse that followed it.

Discovery of peasant society as a subject of study

Peasant society as a topic of research in anthropology and sociology didn't begin to take off until the turn of the twentieth century, despite the fact that the study of agriculture and the farming population dates back to the traditional doctrines of political economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Historically, complex industrial societies were studied by sociologists and anthropologists, while primitive societies were studied by the other. By contrasting pre-industrial and industrial societies, classical theorists like Marx, Weber, and Durkheim sought to comprehend the emergence of modern economic behavior. In this classical tradition, many binary concepts and theories were developed to explain modern and traditional, industrial and pre-industrial societies; the peasant society or agricultural society did not find a place within the conceptual framework that was available, and almost all nineteenth-century sociologists worked primarily on industrial society, and the peasant society was considered to be residual to industrial society.

Peasant societies became a focus of study primarily after World War II as a result of increased interest in Third World nations, which were predominately populated by farmers, and the growing involvement of the peasantry in these nations' political systems. Peasantry received more attention as a result of both recent advances in anthropology and the concerted efforts of United Nations-sponsored "development programs.". The number of "unspoiled" tribes and exclusive "folk" communities has been decreasing among Western anthropologists. Long before anthropologists, however, historians, economists, political theorists, and statisticians had conducted research, but from viewpoints unique to their own fields. The study of peasants and peasant societies has its roots in the indigenous attempts made at the turn of the 20th century in Eastern and Central Europe with growing recognition of the problems afflicting the people living in the countryside2 . This is due to the fact that these nations were then faced with numerous problems given the presence of a large peasantry - the poorest, most backward, and numerically a large population on its way to moderating. Peasantry research in Europe had, however, faced challenging circumstances during the first quarter of the 20th century. the political developments, including the emergence of numerous national ideologies, military dictatorship, Russian collectivization, etc. had not been in favor of specialized research on peasant communities during this time. Even so, a small number of such studies were carried out3; however, the majority of these studies were not accessible to the English-speaking worlds as they were written exclusively in East European languages, with the exception of works with titles like W. I. F. Thomas and. The Economics of Peasant Farming by Doreen Warriner and The Polish Peasant in Europe and America by Znaniecki, both of which were published in English, are early examples. The extent to which these scholarly traditions dealt with peasants as such is questionable, despite the fact that they produced a wealth of theory and data; their point of reference was the politically contentious peasantry of particular European nations. However, the research projects carried out in the following era with various theoretical viewpoints gave rise to the anthropology of peasantry as a discipline, endowing it with scientific vigor and accuracy. The theory of cultural relativism, among the dominant theoretical schools at the time, provided opportunities for identifying the distinctive characteristics of peasant societies. It was decided to look for characteristics that would set primitives apart from peasants. A. L. Most often, Kroeber's Anthropology (1948) is credited with introducing the idea of "peasantry" in anthropology. As a result of Kroeber's formulation of the pre-existing conceptual categories of society, social anthropologists who had previously focused solely on small tribes and closed folk communities began to pay attention to peasants.

Robert Redfield's Tepozltan, which focused on a 4, 000-person Aztec and Spanish-speaking pueblo in northern Morelos, not far from Mexico City but relatively remote, was the first comprehensive study of a rural community to be published. Redfield developed the idea of the folk-urban continuum following a number of studies in Mexico. Urban society is a representation of modern life, whereas folk society refers to communities from the past. The peasant society is viewed as a concept that lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. A number of studies in the anthropological literature were inspired by this continuum (Beals 1946; Embree 1939; Lewis 1951; Redfield and Rojas 1934). Only during this time has the study of peasant society gained more scholarly traction. The study of peasants, according to Redfield, "a recognizable and long-enduring human type," serves as a sort of link between prehistoric isolation and advanced civilizations. He claims that studying peasants "calls for new thoughts and procedures of investigation" and makes anthropology "very much more interesting. ".

Emergence of Peasant as an analytical category

The term "peasant" has never been used consistently or unambiguously, despite the fact that social scientists of various intellectual persuasions have studied peasants at various points in time. Some have even used the term as if it were a self-explanatory concept. Neither is the term "peasant" used as an analytical category, nor is it even considered a term that necessitates definition. A. L. People who "constitute part societies with part cultures, definitely rural, yet live in a relation to a market town," according to Kroeber, who developed the concept of peasant society as an intermediary between part societies and part cultures. They (those who lack the isolation, political autonomy, and self-sufficiency of tribal populations) still retain much of their former identity, integration, and attainment to the soil in their local units. Because both modern farmers and tribal cultivators have staked a claim to the title of peasant, this has given rise to debate and contention in the field of peasant studies. In the rural studies, the word "peasant" was still used indiscriminately. Even the studies published a quarter of a century after Redfield's study of Tepoztlan (such as Redfield's ChanKom: A Maya Village (with Villa Rojas) and The Folk Culture of Yucatan; Arensberg's The Irish Countrymen and Family and Community in Ireland (with Kimball); Chapman's Milocca: A Sicilian Village; Embree's Suye Mura: A Japanese Village; Fei'sPeasant Life. While some people have viewed the term "peasant" as referring to "a way of life, a complex of formal organization, individual behavior, and social attitudes, closely knit together for the purpose of husbanding land with simple tools and human labor," others have used the term as a synonym for "farmers.". The term is rarely defined, but rather is used as if it were self-explanatory, with the common dictionary meaning of rustics who work the land, as S. Silverman correctly observed.

In Malay Fishermen: Their Peasant Economy (1946), Raymond Firth used the concept of the peasant for the first time in an analytical context. Firth justified the term's application to non-cultivators by referring to it as "a socio-economic category" in this instance. His explicit requirements were economic: small-scale producers using primitive technology who rely primarily on their own output for survival. Thus, as he noted in his 1951 book Elements of Social Organization, he included small-scale producers other than cultivators who shared the "same kind of simple economic organization.". But he added, ". dot . and community life," and continues on to discuss the "folk" nature of these communities. Later, in a 1964 essay titled "Capital, Saving, and Credit in Peasant Societies," Firth expanded the term to include "other non-agricultural "countrymen," too, who share the social life and values of the cultivators dot.". because "they are a part of the same social system.". Firth's definition appears overly inclusive, making it difficult to distinguish between peasants and non-peasants because he included non-cultivators like artisans and fishermen in this category.

The term "peasant" didn't become established as a category of analysis or a subject matter in and of itself until the middle of the 1950s. Robert Redfield, one of the first anthropologists to specialize in peasant studies, discusses "the peasant" in his 1953 book The Primitive World and Its Transformations. dot . as a human kind. The article "Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary Discussion" by Eric R. Wolf was published in the American Anthropologist in 1955. It starts with a section titled "The Peasant Type" that defines the term "peasant" based on three characteristics. The philosopher F. Redfield was inspired by his 1954 presentation on "The Peasant's View of the Good Life" at the University of Chicago. G. The Peasant: A Symposium Concerning the Peasant Way and View of Life, organized by Friedmann, is a continuing symposium-by-correspondence that started with a correspondence between nine academics. Redfield considered this lecture to be a sort of postscript to The Little Community, in which he "thought of small communities as independent of things outside of themselves, which he published in 1956 along with three other lectures under the title Peasant Society and Culture. ".

The concept of peasantry is approached from four major conceptual traditions: (a) the Marxist class theory; (b) "the specific economy" typology; (c) the ethnographic cultural tradition; and (d) Durkheimian tradition, according to Theodor Shanin's seminal article, "Peasantry: delineation of a sociological concept and a field of study," which appeared in European Journal of Sociology in 1971. Each of these traditions has a propensity to emphasize a specific aspect of rural life while adopting a method for analyzing social change and the breakdown of the peasantry in the "modern world" that is closely related. The type of economy tradition saw peasants in terms of the particular ways a family-farm operates, whereas the Marxist approach approached peasantry in terms of power relations. The ethnographic cultural tradition, which derives from both traditional Western and East-European anthropology, views peasants as the heirs to a former national tradition that has been preserved through "cultural lag" and the inherent inertia of peasant societies. However, according to the Durkheimian tradition, which divides societies into traditional and modern, peasants occupy a middle ground between autonomous groups in "folk" societies and modern societies with "organic" interaction. Despite the fact that Kroeber laid the groundwork for this tradition, Redfield expanded upon it through numerous empirical investigations.

Robert Redfield: Conceptualisation and Reconceptualization of Peasantry

Redfield defined peasants as small producers who rely on land cultivation for their livelihood and way of life in Peasant Society and Culture. His conceptualization of peasants and peasant society excludes many previously considered peasant communities and suggests that peasants either reject or are unaware of the profit motive. He does not include collectors, hunters, fishermen, or herders in the definition of a peasant, in contrast to Firth. Redfield goes on to meticulously follow Eric Wolf in order to clarify the definition. Peasantry is defined by Eric Wolf as small-scale agricultural producers whose primary concern is subsistence rather than reinvestment in his article "Types of Latin American Peasantry" published in American Anthropologist in 1955. Peasants don't view land as a valuable asset, according to him. Redfield limited the use of the term "peasants" to small farmers who practice agriculture as a means of subsistence rather than a means of making a profit by incorporating Wolf's concept. With a Kroeberian perspective, he continues to elaborate on the definition by stating that a peasant community's culture is not independent; rather, it is a facet of the civilization to which it belongs. Therefore, he provided an explanation of the peasantry's inclusive nature with the larger society through "great traditions" and their "exclusive nature" through their own "little traditions.". Redfield contends that, unlike primitive societies and cultures, peasant varieties bear side-by-side relations and up-and-down relations to primitive tribal peoples as well as to towns and cities. Peasant society and culture is "a kind of arrangement of humanity with some similarities all over the world," according to Redfield. Redfield provides an interesting discussion of the peasants' conception of the good life in chapter IV of Peasant Society and Culture. He suggests that these traits exist among them: "an intense attachment to native soil; a reverent disposition toward habitat and ancestral ways; a restraint in individual self-seeking in favor of family and community; a certain suspicion, mixed with appreciation, of town life; a sober and earthy ethic. ” .

The Redfieldian approach to defining peasants includes three distinct components, according to Silverman (1979): "way of life, community, and tradition.". Certain cultural traits, such as attitudes, values, and other ideational components, defined the "way of life.". The conventional understandings, worldviews, ways of living, and most importantly, the quality of life, were theoretically stressed by Redfield. The second presumption is that certain communities are specifically inhabited by peasants. The term "community" is interchangeable with "village" or other units or settlements, and the study of peasants is synonymous with the study of villages. Third, in a typological contrast between tradition and modernity, peasants are seen as "traditional" (in reference to civilizational content).


Redfield's definition of the peasant and peasant society had a significant impact on the conceptual discourse that followed6. His influence could also be seen in the definitions of academics who place an emphasis on the political or economic aspects of peasantry. Shanin summarized some of the major intellectual traditions within which the study of peasantries had advanced in his article titled "Peasantry: Delineation of a Sociological Concept and a Field of Study" in the European Journal of Sociology. He provided a broad definition based on four key traits of these groups, including (a) the peasant family farm as the fundamental building block of multidimensional social organization; (b) land husbandry as the primary source of income; (c) unique traditional culture; and (d) the underdog role. Although Shanin's definition emphasizes the organic ties between the peasantry, gentry, and other social strata while indicating a Marxist/Leninist perspective on peasants, it also reflects Redfield's influence.

Redfield tradition and discourse on Peasantry in India

Redfield's seminal ideas on cultural relativism were examined, and their validity was empirically tested in a number of village studies in the 1950s and 1960s, despite the fact that Redfield himself was unable to apply the analytical model he developed in studies in Mexico to an Indian context. In some ways, the village studies brought peasant studies to India. To comprehend the village's social structure, Milton Singer used the "Little tradition" and "Great tradition" model. Using Redfield as a guide, McKim Marriott developed two concepts that work together to explain the twin processes of universalization and parochialization. Redfield regards Marriott's "universalization" and "parochialization" as the first successful expression of the mutual ingress of large and small traditions. Oscar Lewis added the idea of rural cosmopolitanism to this list. S. C was guided by a critical evaluation of these ideas. Indian tradition is divided into five categories: classical, regional, local, western, and emerging national, according to Dube (1958).

Following Redfield's approach of the folk-urban continuum, the frameworks of tribe-caste, tribe-peasant, and rural-urban continuum generated a number of studies where a continuum of "Tribe" to "Emergent Peasant" or "Proto Peasant" to "Peasant" is developed (See for example, Bailey 1960, Bose 1962; Sinha 1965, Majumdar 1972, Bhandari 1978, Goswami 1978. Based on her research, which was published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1962, SantiPriya clarified the applicability of Redfield's model to the folk-urban value system and peasant behavior in West Bengal. Surajit Sinha describes how tribal society transitioned from being isolated, homogeneous, and unstructured to becoming caste and peasant-based. He does so by drawing on Redfield. J. A tribe that engages in settled agriculture but is not a part of the "Great tradition" of the larger society is referred to as an "Emergent Peasant" by S. Bhandari (1978). For similar reasons, Goswami (1978) referred to the Bhandari "Emergent Peasant" as a "Proto-Peasant.". In essence, as stated by L. P. Redfield, Vidyarthi. dot . provided theoretical and methodological guidance for comprehending the rural and peasant communities in India as facets of Indian civilization (Vidyarthi 1978:19).

Despite the fact that Redfield's influence helped establish a new tradition of village studies in India that sparked peasant studies in sociology and social anthropology, his conception of the peasant and the peasant society has given rise to numerous conceptual problems as shown in the works of scholars like F. G. Andre Beteille and Bailey. Redfield's detractors had completely discounted the value of "peasant culture" because of the ambiguity in the term's definition. B notices it. According to B Choudhury (2008), Redfield's method of defining "peasant society" by contrasting it with "tribal society" (also known as "primitive community") and "urban society" is dubious. He also adds that Redfield's "cultural" criteria for identifying a peasant society are too broad to be a reliable approach for conducting insightful historical research. The "way of life," "peasant values," or "peasant world view" cannot be reduced to a set of characteristics that exist everywhere because "the way of life" varies greatly depending on the period and location.

Based on his fieldwork in Orissa (currently Odisha), F. G. While acknowledging the existence of the "cognitive map," or "the ethos, world view, collective representations, beliefs and values of peasants of particular villages or localities," Bailey denied the "map's" universal applicability. His conclusions are quite at odds with Redfield's observations. He contradicts Redfield's definition of the peasant "way of life," "peasant values," and "peasant world view" in his essay titled "The Peasant View of the Bad Life.". In this context, it's important to consider Bailey's two key findings regarding the "peasant view of the bad life.". He noted, to start, that peasants distrusted "outsiders" and saw them as their enemies. Second, he disavows the idealized perception of rural life, including "its certainty and dependability". Sutti Ortiz also criticized the idea of "peasant culture9" in a similar manner. He contends that because there are so many variables at play that influence behavior and ideologies, it is implausible to think that people who are grouped together because some of them share certain economic circumstances and are subject to a particular type of political dominance would share the same cultural values, cognitive frameworks, and extremely similar social structures. Once more, even in cases where peasants come from the same culture, their economic behavior cannot be explained in terms of their attitudes, values, or cognitive frameworks. Although they can serve as a behavioral guide, ideologies can also be used to defend past actions that were driven by different reasons.

In his Six essays in comparative sociology, Beteille argued that Redfield, like other Western scholars, assumed that villages were homogeneous communities of peasants. He also believed that people who live in villages are peasants and that villages are places where peasants live. Redfield also treated peasants as an unequal group that was sharply distinct from that of class societies. Beteille highlights the limitations of Redfield's idea of Indian peasantry by using the example of his own village study (Sripuram in Tamil Nadu) and citing a number of other studies. He claims that some people in rural or village areas of India do not conform to Redfield's idea of the peasantry. In this context, he alludes to the existence of a sizable Brahmin community in Sripuram who held rent-free agraharam lands but did not actively cultivate the lands. This is the gentry class, in Beteille's opinion, and to refer to them as peasants would be to set oneself up for failure in analysis. He believed that Redfield's definition of peasantry might not be appropriate for Indian society given its complexity. According to him, "Indian anthropologists do not appear to have sufficiently pondered on the specific characteristics of Indian peasants and have assumed that they must be the same as those of peasants everywhere" in this context. It has been noted that Beteille overemphasized the taxonomic issues with Redfield's methodology.10 It seems the peasant, for Beteille, is the small owner-cultivator; the agrarian worker may be admitted into the category when it is posited in opposition to the noncultivating gentry, but the latter have to be beyond the pale.

Conclusion

Robert Redfield made it known that peasant society should be studied by anthropologists and sociologists who study India. His methodical approach allowed for a theoretical appreciation of India's rural and peasant communities as a component of civilization. Redfield's tradition generated continued interest in peasant and village studies and predominated the anthropological sociological studies in the first few decades on rural India, even though the applicability of his conceptualization of peasantry in India is disputed, particularly in the rapidly changing contemporary socio-economic context.

Further Reading:

  1. Redfield, R. (1956). Peasant society and culture: an anthropological approach to civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 
  2. Silverman, S. (1979). ‘The peasant concept in anthropology’. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 7(1), 49-69. 
  3. Beteille, A. (1974). Six essays in comparative sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 
  4. Mencher, J. P. (1983ed. ). Social anthropology of peasantry, Bombay: Somaiya Publications. 
  5. Mintz, Sidney W. (1973). A note on the definition of peasantries, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1:1, 91-106 Sidney 
  6. W. Mintz (1973): A note on the definition of peasantries, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1:1, 91-106

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