Anthropology 541a Instructors: Robert Harms History 965a Michael Dove Political Science 779a Enrique Mayer F&ES 753a Steven Stoll Mondays, 1:30-5:20 Fall Semester 2002 158 Whitney Ave. Fall 2002 AGRARIAN SOCIETIES CULTURE, POWER, HISTORY, AND DEVELOPMENT This seminar presents a multi-disciplinary perspective on the modern transformation of the countryside of the world. The rise of a capitalist mode of production as the engine of a world economy, the emergence of a contentious international polity of nation-states, and the propagation of rationalizing religions and standardizing education are three distinct yet intersecting processes in the modern transformation of the world since the 1500s. These processes have not been inevitable, nor irreversible, nor complete. However, they have been compelling, in so far as they have come to frame both our acceptance of and resistance to the modern order in which we find ourselves. "Peasant studies" is a rubric for the loosely-bounded, interdisciplinary exploration of the initial modernization of the European countryside and the subsequent engagement and ongoing incorporation of the countryside of Asia, Africa, and the Americas into this modern order. At its most precocious, it tries to comprehend the intrusive thrusts of nation-state formation, capitalist production, and the rationalization of belief into the most distant agrarian regions of the world. At its most instructive, it insists that people everywhere have confronted those forces with their particular histories and distinctive, local configurations of environment, society, and culture. Everywhere, the encounters of old and new ways of viewing the world and organizing activities have been fitful and frightful, always metamorphic, but never uniform. Animating peasant studies has been the concern to demonstrate the varied ways in which peasants have shared in the making of the modern world that has in turn transformed their lives. We intend this to be an introductory seminar. That is, we assume you may be ignorant of much of the basic literature. We also assume that you work hard and learn fast. Although the varying backgrounds of students and faculty require us to be somewhat eclectic, we hope that the seminar will prove foundational in an interdisciplinary sense for subsequent work on agrarian issues in any discipline. We encourage you, in your writing and discussion, to make vigorous efforts to be understood across disciplinary boundaries. Seminar meetings combine lectures and discussions. We expect regular attendance; please notify us in advance if you are unable to come to a session. We regard participation in discussions to be a gauge of students' completion and comprehension of the assigned readings. We will evaluate your performance in the seminar on the basis of this participation and on the quality and timeliness of the writing assignments. Beginning in the third week, designated students will be asked to take formal responsibility for organizing the discussion of the readings. Such responsibility will be shared as equitably as possible. As far as writing assignments are concerned, there are two. First, students are required to submit short (3 page) essays on THREE weekly themes/readings of their choice. They may want to link these essays to themes for which they have some responsibility in organizing the discussion. A second paper is due at the end of the course. This may be either a research paper on a topic related to the course concerns or a theoretical discussion or synthesis of some of the analytical readings we have covered. In either case, it should be negotiated with one of the instructors. All assigned readings for the seminar are on reserve at the Social Science or Cross Campus Libraries. Copies of all assigned books are available for purchase at Book Haven. In addition, we have placed a collection of all assigned articles on file at the office of the Program on Agrarian Studies Office (room 201 at 89 Trumbull Street). Students may choose to have a copy of this file made for their purchase and use. COURSE SYLLABUS September 9 Week 1 Robert Harms Introduction No Reading _______________________________________________________________________ September 16 Week 2 Robert Harms Agrarian Change and la Longue DurŽe Readings: Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. 1974. The Peasants of Languedoc, translated by John Day. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. (Book Haven) Robert Brenner. 1985. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe," AND Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. 1985. "A Reply to Robert Brenner," in The Brenner Debate: Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, . edited by T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin. Cambridge University Press, pp. 10-63, 101-6. (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ September 23 Week 3 Enrique Mayer Theoretical and Ethnographic Understanding of Household Economies Readings: Enrique Mayer. 2002. The Articulated Peasant : Household Economies In the Andes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Chap.1, pp.1-46; chaps. 8, 9, and 10: pp. 239-333. (Book Haven) Stephen Gudeman. 1990. Conversations in Colombia: The Domestic Economy in Life and Text. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Chaps. 1, 2,3, and 4. (Reading Packet) A.V. Chayanov. 1986. The Theory of Peasant Economy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. xi-xxiii; 1-24; 35-117. (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ September 30 Week 4 Enrique Mayer Pooling, Reciprocity and Redistribution in Household Economies Readings: Enrique Mayer. 2002. The Articulated Peasant : Household Economies In the Andes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6: pp. 47-204. (Book Haven) _______________________________________________________________________ October 7 Week 5 Michael R. Dove Agrarian Ethnography: The Politics of Describing the Disreputable Readings: Harold C. Conklin. [1957] 1975. HanunoÕo Agriculture: A Report on an Integral System of Shifting Cultivation in the Philippines. Originally published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. Reprint, Northford, CT: ElliotÕs Books. (Book Haven) J.S. Otto and N.E. Anderson. 1982. "Slash-and-Burn Cultivation in the Highlands South:A Problem in Comparative Agricultural History," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 24, pp.131-47. (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ October 14 Week 6 Steven Stoll Market Revolution Readings: Christopher Clark. 1992. The Roots of Rural Capitalism. Cornell University Press. (Book Haven) Allan Kulikoff. 1992. The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism. University Press of Virginia. (Reading Packet) DOCUMENT: Ordinance of 1785 (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ October 21 Week 7 Steven Stoll Frontier Expansion and its Critics Readings: Steven Stoll. 2002. Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America. Farrar Straus & Giroux. Prologue and chs. 1 and 2. (Book Haven) Terry Jordan and Matti Kaups. 1992. The American Backwoods Frontier. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp.1-18, 94-134, browse pictures. (Reading Packet) DOCUMENTS: James McCabe. 1870. Planting the Wilderness; or The Pioneer Boys. Lee and Shepard. (The Making of America: http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/ OR use the libraryÕs portal. Browse for the author or search for title). George Perkins Marsh. 1848. "Address Delivered Before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, September 30, 1847." (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ October 28 Week 8 Steven Stoll Industrial Agriculture in the Far West Readings: Mark Fiege. 1999. Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West. University of Washington Press. (Book Haven) DOCUMENTS: Walter Goldschmidt. 1947. As You Sow: Three Studies in the Social Consequences of Agribusiness. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun and Co. Publishers, Inc. (Reading Packet) R.L. Adams. 1931. "The Management of Large Farms." Agricultural Engineering,(12): 353-57. (Reading Packet) E.G. Nourse. 1918. "The Revolution in Farming."Yale Review, New Series, 8 (October). (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ November 4 Week 9 Michael R. Dove Agee/Evans - Representing Rural Lives Readings: James Agee and Walker Evans.1988/1939. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. "Foreword," pp. xli-xliv; "Preamble," pp. 7-16; "Money," pp.115-21; "Shelter," pp. 123-220; and "On the Porch," pp.221-53. (Book Haven) Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson. 1989. And Their Children After Them: The Legacy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee, Walker Evans, and the Rise and Fall of Cotton in the South. New York: Pantheon Books. "Maggie Louise," i-v; Preface, xv-xxiii; "King Cotton," 3-16; and "1936-1940," pp. 17-72. (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ November 11 Week 10 Enrique Mayer We are Going to Market to Buy Money Readings: Enrique Mayer. 2002. The Articulated Peasant: Household Economies In the Andes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Chap. 7, pp. 205-38. (Book Haven) Paul Bohannan. 1959. "The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy," The Journal of Economic History, XIX, no.4: 491-503. (Reading Packet) Keith Hart. 1986. "Heads or Tails?: Two Sides of the Coin," Man 21(4): 637-56. (Reading Packet) Jonathan Parry. 1989. "On the Moral Perils of Exchange." In Money and the Morality of Exchange, edited by J. Parry and M. Bloch. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Pp. 64-93. (Reading Packet) Parker Shipton. 1995. "How Gambians Save: Culture and Economic Strategy at an Ethnic Crossroads." In Money Matters: Instability, Values, and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities by J.I. Guyer. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman. Pp.245-76. (Reading Packet) _______________________________________________________________________ November 18 Week 11 Robert Harms Colonialism Readings: Robert Harms. 1987. Games Against Nature: An EcoCultural History of the Nunu of Equatorial Africa. Cambridge University Press. (Book Haven) _______________________________________________________________________ December 2 Week 12 Michael R. Dove Development Discourse: Why Failure Succeeds Readings: James Ferguson. 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Book Haven)