Peasant theories and smallholder policies: Past and present

This introductory chapter provides some definitional parameters before outlining the contours of peasant discourse over the past two centuries, asking why western social science enquiry has embraced the topic of peasant transformation in some periods and ignored it in others. Concentration is placed on the post-World War II literature, which is bifurcated into a comparative rural sociological 'peasant' perspective and an economic development approach focused on 'smallholders'.