ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the basic thesis, which is that the peasant is associated with a major development in the history of anthropology—a crisis of sorts—of which the peasant is both symptom and cause. It explores global tendencies that have been promoting the deconstruction of the temporal and spatial dualisms that underlie the essentialization of 'the peasant' in the modernist mode. The book deals with the peasant as an anthropological category. It examines global conditions that are shaping postpeasant identities and anthropological representations of them. The book discusses the categories of anthropology to the sociology and consciousness of ethnographic subjects, to those peoples designated as 'peasants.' It also examines the expressions of several of transnational trends in consciousness and their social and political forms, forms that are emerging as conceptual vehicles for the reconceptualization of rural types formerly known as 'peasants.'.
