ABSTRACT
Comparing two of the main paradigms utilized in the study of Latin American peasants, this introduction considers the way each interprets grassroots rural identity/agency, as embodied in their respective approaches to the reproduction and survival of peasant economy, the empowering/disempowering nature of specific kinds of agrarian mobilization and labour regime, together with their perception of the role/form of the State. The first of these paradigms is the one used by the ‘new’ postmodern populists, who—together with neoliberals—theorize rural agency as based on innate peasant/ethnic identity, the aim of which is not to transcend capitalism but to survive within it. This approach to the peasantry in Latin America contrasts with that of the agrarian question, an ‘old’ paradigm in which rural agency based on class identity is designed to capture and exercise state power, with the political object of transcending capitalism. Their relative merits are examined, and evaluated in terms of the case studies presented in this volume.
