Peasant identities in Brazil and Russia

Paulo Niederle

Alexander Kurakin

This article analyses Brazilian and Russian peasantries from a relational perspective. The authors argue that, in order to understand the trajectory of peasantries in both countries, the classic substantialist perspectives on peasantry (either Marxist or Chayanovian) have to be complemented by a relational interpretation that focus on the construction of peasantry as an identity alternative to family farming, smallholders, and households in confrontation with agribusiness. Therefore, we show that modern peasantry is both the expression of an evolving socio-productive logic incorporated by different groups of farmers, and a political identity that, mainly in Brazil, is still mobilized by social movements that question the contemporary concept of family farming. In Russia, where the emergence of capitalism in agriculture did not lead to intensive political confrontation, the term ‘peasant’ has lost its interpretive power, being revindicated only in academic circles, and being gradually replaced by the term ‘family farming’.

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