| Abstrakt: |
Though obscured by agricultural modernization efforts in the 1950s, peasant and peasant-like farm realities persist. Since the 1990s, Italy, like the rest of Europe, witnessed a wave of re-peasantization—a conceptual framework introduced by rural sociologist Jan Douwe van der Ploeg to mark the emergence of a mode of agriculture that is distinctively more peasant-like. Using a qualitative, field-based two-case design, this study explored this phenomenon in two new entrant farms in Campania and Sicily, in Italy. Each farm's practices and pursued objectives, as well as its social networks were analyzed. Findings revealed that the two farms adopt strategies grounded in the material and immaterial resources of their territories, thus minimizing their dependence on external inputs and expertise. Built social networks support the diversification of their activities, of their market circuits and of their knowledge sources. This study contributes to the documentation of new peasant realities in Italy, while highlighting the importance of contextual specificities for understanding new farming models and farmer identities. • New farmers gain autonomy through the diversification of farming activities, and of market- and knowledge-based networks. • New farming realities are complex and difficult to qualify according to the peasant-entrepreneurial dichotomy. • The two case studies invite reflections on contemporary rural realities and farmer identities in Italy and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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