ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the later development of neo-Marxist and political economy analyses of peasant societies by Joel Kahn, Kathryn Robinson and Andrew Turton among others and the concepts of 'peasantization', 'proletarianization' and 'agrarian differentiation'. Villages in South-East Asia had always been open to the outside world, but external contacts and links increased in extent and intensity so that the divide between 'rural' and 'urban' became much less marked. The chapter intends to take up certain issues of peasant social and economic organization which Raymond Firth in particular explores, and the relationships between small-scale economies and wider forces of change. In small-scale, face-to-face peasant communities individuals also interacted one with another not merely in economic terms as producers, consumers, owners and coordinators of production, but also as relatives, neighbours and friends. The chapter agrees with Kahn that class differences among peasants are relatively modest when compared with the substantial differences between peasants and those beyond the village.
