Day labourers,radical unionism and collective action in Andalusia

This article analyses the strategies and the collective action of radical agrarian trade unions in Andalusia (the southern region of Spain) from the Political Transition until today. It traces the origins, evolution and recent transformations of the radical day labourer organisation, the Land Workers Union (Sindicato de Obreros del Campo) and the Andalusian Union of Workers (Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores). The article outlines the main factors for the survival of these organisations by using a synthetic and eclectic theoretical approach to collective action.     

Proletarianisation,land, income and living conditions of farm labourers in Kenya

In some areas in Sub‐Saharan Africa, a rural proletariat has emerged, mainly consisting of labourers living and working on plantations and large mixed farms. Besides these ‘full proletarians’, there are also labourers living outside the agricultural estates who perform agricultural wage labour during specific seasons only. Most of these ‘semi‐proletarians’ own a small piece of land. The study analyses the relationship between the degree of proletarianisation on the one hand, and the socio‐economic situation and living conditions of labourers on large farms in Kenya's Trans Nzoia District on the other. In doing so, a comparison is also made with a group of non‐labourers. The conclusion is that a higher degree of proletarianisation coincides with a lower income level but not necessarily poorer living conditions.     

Class formation and class struggle in la convention,Peru

This paper has as its object the analysis of class formation, class struggle and its effects in the province of La Convention, Peru. The first section of the paper examines this process at the level of the province as a whole during the 1940–68 pre‐agrarian reform period, while the second and third sections focus on the same process in more detail as it relates to one particular rural estate during the period between 1973 and 1975 following the agrarian reform. The fourth section examines the question of political practice arising from the analysis elaborated in the two previous sections.     

Permanent transition or permanent revolution: Peasants,proletarians, and politics

David Goodman and Michael Redclift, From Peasant to Proletarian: Capitalist Development and Agrarian Transitions, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981. Pp. xii + 244, £15 (cloth).

This review article considers a book which attempts to present and evaluate Marxist debates on agrarian transition without at first clarifying its own position on Marxist theory and concepts. It is suggested here that this omission, combined with a compressed treatment of complex arguments, results in misinterpretations and misrepresentations of some of these debates, together with a devaluation of the significance of their political inception.     

Soviet Peasants and Collectivization, 1930-39: Resistance and Adaptation

This article re-evaluates the widely held view that Soviet peasants responded only or predominantly with resistance to collectivization and work in Soviet collective farms. It analyses key examples of the evidence for this 'resistance interpretation' to show that the evidence is not representative of most peasants' actions. It presents new evidence and analysis to show that peasant responses cannot be reduced to resistance, that more often they adapted to the new system, and that they worked hard within the system to overcome famines.     

Resisting the New State: Peasants and Pastoralists in Iran, 1921-41

This article examines the responses of the rural poor, both settled peasants and pastoral nomads, to the upheavals unleashed in the Iranian countryside by Riza Shah's adoption of a programme of authoritarian state-building and rapid modernization. The article shows how, contrary to the conventional assumptions of rural passivity held by both Western scholarship and Iranian nationalism, peasant and nomad communities in fact generated a variety of active responses to the regime's initiatives, both on their own account and in combination with other social forces, aimed at defending themselves and resisting unfavourable changes in their relations with landlords and state officials.     

Peasants,grapes and corporations: The growth of contract farming in a Chilean community

This article examines the social implications of contract farming promoted in smallholding areas. It is argued that rather than resulting in overall proletarianisation of the local peasantry, contract farming may accelerate its differentiation and disintegration by converting rich peasants into peasant capitalists. The argument is supported by a historical analysis of socio‐economic and organisational processes in a Chilean smallholding community which experienced two consecutive waves of agribusiness expansion: a tobacco boom in the 1950s and a fruit export expansion in the 1970s and 1980s.     

Peasants and the redshirt movement in Thailand: some dissenting voices

The ‘redshirt’ movement in Thailand is commonly portrayed in media and scholarly accounts as a class-based, pro-Thaksin social movement that draws fervent support from the poor rural-born masses, especially peasants, in the north and northeast. The movement leaders, including Thaksin, have supposedly won these people's support by framing urban-based political elites as ammart (aristocrats) who have stakes in suppressing the needs of phrai (serfs) – a contrasting label for the rural-born poor. I question this analysis that highlights the polarisation of Thai society along class lines. Combining data from election results and fieldwork in Chiang Mai Province – Thaksin's birthplace and the putative redshirt heartland – I show that despite their relative poverty, some peasants remain cynical opponents of the redshirt movement. They have autonomy to penetrate and reinterpret the redshirts' class-centric collective action frame – a fact that cautions us against linking rural poverty causally to rural support for redshirts. Peasants are a more diverse, politically divided lot than we are led to believe.     

New markets,old struggles: Large and small farmers in the export agriculture of coastal Peru

Although the output of high-value crops in Peru has increased during the era of ‘globalization’, producers still tend to contextualize this development in relation to the 1969 agrarian reform. Considered here is how large and small farmers in the Cañete region perceive the changes that have occurred in agriculture since a generation ago, with particular reference to market competition and the implications of the new economic conditions for environmental sustainability. Despite the fact that farmers located at each end of the rural hierarchy experience the economic impact of globalization differently, small cultivators exporting their produce to the international market being particularly vulnerable to its laissez faire regime, they nevertheless share a common belief in the importance of agriculture for the well-being of the nation. The latter, it is suggested, is a discourse that reproduces much of the ideology associated historically with the agrarian and foundation myths.     

Cargos and conflict: The fiesta system and capitalist development in Eastern Peru

This article considers the fact of and reasons for pre‐ and post‐reform change in the structure of the fiesta system on a rural estate in the province of La Convención, and its effect on the development of a capitalist agriculture. In economic terms, this process involves a transformation of the fiesta from a context in which the landlord extracts rent from his tenants to one in which different peasant strata struggle for control over means of production acquired as a result of the agrarin reform. In politico‐ideological terms, the fiesta operates as an arena where contradictory, non‐religious, and class‐specific idioms of struggle are accepted or rejected by the protagonists.     

Uneven paths: women and welfare in Italy and Spain

Taking the Spanish case as a departure point, this paper explores a variety of causes for the slowdown in female employment growth in Italy over recent years. The paper analyses the peculiarities of the Italian labour market, with a higher propensity to inactivity than in other countries, as well as the generally low educational levels among the Italian population and the pervasive presence of the black economy. It goes on to examine institutional and political features, such as the organisation of social policies, the political weakness of feminism, the role of the Catholic Church, family networks and the North–South duality (which is particularly extreme with regard to gender equality). The features studied relate to each other in a logic which could account for the divergent paths of the social position of women in Italy and Spain. The article is based in Labour Force and Multiscopo surveys, as well as on interviews with Italian social policy experts.     

Love and the State: Gay Marriage in Spain

On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage. This formal equality measure put Spain in the spotlight of the international media. It is the culmination of a series of developments spanning from the last years of the Franco regime (which ended in 1975), through the enactment of anti-discrimination measures in 1995, to the recent fight for kinship recognition. It also follows a recent shift, from 1998 to 2005, towards the enactment of same-sex partnership laws at regional level, the approval of same-sex marriage and finally, the approval of a ‹gender identity law’ (2007). This legislative note assesses the context in which the new law on same-sex marriage has been enacted. I argue that although same-sex marriage has been represented by many activists and politicians in Spain as a gender neutral contract, it has the potential for differential impacts on lesbians and gay men, and further research and debates are needed in this area.     

Changes in noneconomic political attitudes of Southern and Northern youth, 1970s to 1980s

This paper examines changes that occurred in the political attitudes of Southern and Northern youth from the 1970s to the 1980s. National survey data from the National Opinion Research Center is used. Considering attitudinal changes of people under 30, it appears that trends toward greater political tolerance and greater support for racial and sexual equality will continue in the future. However, this study finds a reversal of the usual trend of greater political tolerance among young people. The United States is increasing in conservatism on the social issues. Aside from the social issues, younger people have not become more conservative with age. Important regional differences in attitude changes are indicated.Recieved Ph.D. from University of Iowa. Research interests include political tolerance and public opinion.