TY - JOUR

T1 - Amazonian peasant livelihood differentiation as mutuality-market dialectics

AU - Fraser, James Angus

AU - Cardoso, Thiago

AU - Steward, Angela

AU - Parry, Luke Thomas Wyn

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Economistic approaches to the study of peasant livelihoods have considerable academic and policy influence, yet, we argue, perpetuate a partial misunderstanding – often reducing peasant livelihood to the management of capital assets by rational actors. In this paper, we propose to revitalize the original heterodox spirit of the sustainable livelihoods framework by drawing on Stephen Gudeman’s work on the dialectic between use values and mutuality on the one hand, and exchange values and the market on the other. We use this approach to examine how historically divergent mutuality-market dialectics in different Amazonian regions have shaped greater prominence of either extractivism or agriculture in current livelihoods. We conclude that an approach centered on the mutuality-market dialectic is of considerable utility in revealing the role of economic histories in shaping differential peasant livelihoods in tropical forests. More generally, it has considerable potential to contribute to a much needed re-pluralization of approaches to livelihood in academia and policy.

AB - Economistic approaches to the study of peasant livelihoods have considerable academic and policy influence, yet, we argue, perpetuate a partial misunderstanding – often reducing peasant livelihood to the management of capital assets by rational actors. In this paper, we propose to revitalize the original heterodox spirit of the sustainable livelihoods framework by drawing on Stephen Gudeman’s work on the dialectic between use values and mutuality on the one hand, and exchange values and the market on the other. We use this approach to examine how historically divergent mutuality-market dialectics in different Amazonian regions have shaped greater prominence of either extractivism or agriculture in current livelihoods. We conclude that an approach centered on the mutuality-market dialectic is of considerable utility in revealing the role of economic histories in shaping differential peasant livelihoods in tropical forests. More generally, it has considerable potential to contribute to a much needed re-pluralization of approaches to livelihood in academia and policy.

KW - environmental policy

KW - forest inhabitants

KW - political economy

KW - labor relations

KW - tropical forest agro-extractivism

KW - heterodox economics

KW - caboclo

KW - riberinho

U2 - 10.1080/03066150.2017.1296833

DO - 10.1080/03066150.2017.1296833

M3 - Journal article

VL - 45

SP - 1382

EP - 1409

JO - The Journal of Peasant Studies

JF - The Journal of Peasant Studies

SN - 0306-6150

IS - 7

ER -