Reconceptualizing the peasantry : anthropology in global perspective (2nd ed)

The concept of "peasant" has been constructed from residual images of pre-industrial European and colonial rural society.

Influenced by Romantic sensibilities and modern nationalist imaginations, the images "peasant" brings to mind are anachronisms that do not reflect the ways in which peasants live today.

This book undertakes a re-examination of the concept, placing the peasantry within the current social context of the transnational and post-Cold War nation state, and offering scope for alternative theoretical views. The author discusses rural society in general and considers the problematic distinction between rural and urban.

Many definitions and debates about peasants have focused on their presumed social, economic, cultural and political characteristics, but this study reflects peasants' own definition of themselves in a rapidly changing world.