Jan Douwe Van Der Ploeg
Biographic Data
| ID | 188161 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jan Douwe Van Der Ploeg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jan Douwe |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Der Ploeg |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER PLOEG J D |
| AFFILIATIONS | China Agricultural University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 992 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
Social differentiation of the peasantry (Chayanovian)
Using a recently re-discovered text by Alexander Chayanov, this article argues that while demographic differentiation may lead to stratification, this is, for a variety of reasons, mostly temporary and does not generally result in the formation of antagonistic rural classes. At the same time there is also the far more deep-rooted phenomenon of market-induced differentiation. This latter type stems from, and reflects, capital's ability to create a…
Reading markets politically: On the Transformativity and Relevance of Peasant Markets
This paper discusses how newly constructed peasant markets are increasingly extending beyond the boundaries (and limits) of the local. This brings their new potentials in relevance and transformativity. The paper includes a comprehensive definition of peasant markets. It is also meant as a reply to those who argue that capitalism cannot be fought by using one of its main mechanisms: 'the market'. By presenting three case studies that describe dif…
Autonomy as a politico‐economic concept: Peasant practices and nested markets
This paper discusses autonomy as a set of practices that result in the production and reproduction of resources that allow for self‐organization. We define autonomy as a social construct that refers to the self‐organizing capacity of people, communities, and movements. Such capacity assumes both resources and agency. In that vein, our conceptualisation implies that autonomy is a relational concept: It can only emerge when and where struggles that…
Sociology of Farming: Concepts and Methods
Stiefmoeder Aarde [Stepmother Earth] by Theun de Vries (1936)
This article presents and discusses 'Stepmother Earth', a novel written by the Frisian author Theun de Vries and published, for the first time, in 1936. This novel is a classic work in the tradition of agrarian studies. It stands out in linking critical theory with people's everyday experiences and language. The text also reflects the political struggles that reigned the countryside at the time of writing. The book still is remarkably relevant an…
The political economy of agroecology
This paper examines agroecology within Europe, its dynamics, its position within a broader politico-economic framework and its political significance. It argues that agroecology is contesting and, at least in some places, effectively changing the main social relations of production in today's agriculture. In this respect, it has a strategically important potential for allowing farmers to regain control over the labour process. Empirically, the pa…
From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: The food system in times of Covid-19
The Covid-19 disease is quickly developing into a deep, global and enduring politico-economic crisis that involves a rapid disarticulation of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. The badly balanced world market and the high degree of financialization of both primary agricultural production and food chains are decisive factors in this. The crisis highlights that the real economy is far too dependent on the financial ec…
Farmers' upheaval, climate crisis and populism
This article aims to unravel underlying reasons for the enigmatic outburst of farmers' fury that swept large parts of Europe in the autumn of 2019. It does so by focussing on the Netherlands where the upheaval was particularly striking. Farmers' resentment against 'agribashing' was a common theme in the many protests. This refers to, and simultaneously delegitimizes, all critiques of the current organization of farming and the unequal internation…
The incursions of extractivism: Moving From Dispersed Places to Global Capitalism
The commonplace notion of extractivism relates to the production of value through physically extractive processes (mining, oil extraction, certain kinds of agriculture, etc.) where value generation is necessarily temporary and generally followed by barrenness and an inability to sustainably reproduce livelihoods in the affected habitat. In this article we aim to rethink extractivism in more general, politico-economic terms, i.e. as a particular w…
Labor, Markets, and Agricultural Production
Focusing on the complex and often contradictory relationships between agricultural production and markets, Labor, Markets, and Agricultural Production examines the micro-macro linkages between farm production, farm labor issues, and the degree of autonomy or dependency vis-Ã -vis markets. By comparing the case of farmers in Peru, generally regarded as peripheral agricultural producers, with that of European farmers able to easily access the centr…
The economic potential of agroecology: Empirical evidence from Europe
The New Peasantries: Rural Development in Times of Globalization
When first published in 2008, The New Peasantries revolutionized our ways of thinking of what constitutes the peasantry and repeasantization. It showed how a new era of empire and globalization was creating new forms of peasantry. This new edition is thoroughly revised, with a reorganization of chapters and several new chapters added. It includes a new chapter on China, based on the author's extensive fieldwork there, and much more information on…
From de-to repeasantization: The modernization of agriculture revisited
China's Peasant Agriculture and Rural Society: Changing Paradigms of Farming
Forum: Fifty years of debate on peasantries, 1966-2016
Ben WhiteThe idea for this discussion originated in a wooden cabin in the Dutch polders in the late summer of 2015. Harriet Friedmann responded enthusiastically to my observation that the Internati
Differentiation: Old Controversies, New Insights
There is a long-standing debate about the nature, impact and significance of processes of differentiation in driving agricultural development. This contribution discusses three ways in which such processes have been conceptualized: modernization theories that put markets centre stage, Marxist theories that focus on class, and Chayanovian approaches that highlight the dynamics within farming families. The empirical evidence for testing these conce…
The importance of peasant agriculture: A Neglected Truth
The Collective Action on Governing the Commons in the Surroundings of Protected Areas
This work has as its theme the common natural resources and the management models that allow new governance systems in the rural areas in the surrounding of protected areas. In this sense, this paper aims to discuss the collective action of social actors in the management of common natural resources in the surroundings of the National Park of Serra da Bodoquena (PNSB). Based on institutional approach for the study of the self-organisation and sel…
Peasantry in the Twenty-First Century
Small works: Poverty and economic development in southwestern China
Can policymakers effectively reduce poverty? This fundamental question guides the powerful analysis elaborated in this book. Although the title Small works suggests some resemblance with Schumacher
Land concentration and land grabbing in Europe: A preliminary analysis
This article offers three insights. First, the renewed global land rush is indeed global: it occurs in the Global North too. Second, the ongoing trend of (generic) land concentration is just as problematic as land grabbing. Third, political processes involving actors at various sites and levels of the state and society mediate corporate and state interests in land, sometimes producing untended outcomes. New “deal brokers” (in finance, business an…
Peasants, time and the land: The social organization of farming in China
Sustaining Food Production through Multifunctionality: The Dynamics of Large Farms in Italy
Theoretical approaches to multifunctional agriculture often posit a dichotomy between 'productivist' and multifunctional agriculture. However, this theoretical dichotomy runs counter to the tendency among many 'productivist' farms to now rely, to varying extents, on newly-developed multifunctional activities. In this article we identify four of the main controversies within the complex theoretical and political debates about multifunctional agric…
Peasant-driven agricultural growth and food sovereignty
The concept of food sovereignty presents us with an important theoretical and practical challenge. The political economy of agriculture can only take up this gauntlet through improving its understanding of the processes of agricultural growth. It is very difficult to address the issue of food sovereignty without such an understanding. Developing such an understanding involves (re)combining the political economy of agriculture with the Chayanovian…
Peasants and the Art of Farming
The peasantries of the twenty-first century: The Commoditisation Debate Revisited
This article examines the re-emergence of the peasantry. It argues that farming is increasingly being restructured in a peasant-like way. This restructuring is an actively constructed response to the agrarian crisis that has grown out of five decades of state-induced modernisation and is currently being accelerated by the financial crisis and the generalised economic depression. Through a process of restructuring that is both multi-dimensional an…
The incursions of extractivism: Moving From Dispersed Places to Global Capitalism
The commonplace notion of extractivism relates to the production of value through physically extractive processes (mining, oil extraction, certain kinds of agriculture, etc.) where value generation is necessarily temporary and generally followed by barrenness and an inability to sustainably reproduce livelihoods in the affected habitat. In this article we aim to rethink extractivism in more general, politico-economic terms, i.e. as a particular w…
Rural Development: From Practices and Policies towards Theory
Both in practice and policy a new model of rural development is emerging. This paper reflects the discussions in the impact research programme and suggests that at the level of associated theory also a fundamental shift is taking place. The modernization paradigm that once dominated policy, practice and theory is being replaced by a new rural development paradigm. Rural development is analyzed as a multi-level, multi-actor and multi-facetted proc…
Farmers' upheaval, climate crisis and populism
This article aims to unravel underlying reasons for the enigmatic outburst of farmers' fury that swept large parts of Europe in the autumn of 2019. It does so by focussing on the Netherlands where the upheaval was particularly striking. Farmers' resentment against 'agribashing' was a common theme in the many protests. This refers to, and simultaneously delegitimizes, all critiques of the current organization of farming and the unequal internation…
Peasant-driven agricultural growth and food sovereignty
The concept of food sovereignty presents us with an important theoretical and practical challenge. The political economy of agriculture can only take up this gauntlet through improving its understanding of the processes of agricultural growth. It is very difficult to address the issue of food sovereignty without such an understanding. Developing such an understanding involves (re)combining the political economy of agriculture with the Chayanovian…
Rural development through the construction of new, nested, markets: Comparative perspectives from China, Brazil and the European Union
This article discusses and compares the rural development processes and practices currently occurring in China, Brazil and the European Union. Although these are strongly rooted in the specificities of time and space, they also share important commonalities. We argue that rural development can be viewed as an evolving set of responses to market failures. A key element of these responses is that they are unfolding through the construction of new m…
The political economy of agroecology
This paper examines agroecology within Europe, its dynamics, its position within a broader politico-economic framework and its political significance. It argues that agroecology is contesting and, at least in some places, effectively changing the main social relations of production in today's agriculture. In this respect, it has a strategically important potential for allowing farmers to regain control over the labour process. Empirically, the pa…
From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: The food system in times of Covid-19
The Covid-19 disease is quickly developing into a deep, global and enduring politico-economic crisis that involves a rapid disarticulation of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. The badly balanced world market and the high degree of financialization of both primary agricultural production and food chains are decisive factors in this. The crisis highlights that the real economy is far too dependent on the financial ec…
Differentiation: Old Controversies, New Insights
There is a long-standing debate about the nature, impact and significance of processes of differentiation in driving agricultural development. This contribution discusses three ways in which such processes have been conceptualized: modernization theories that put markets centre stage, Marxist theories that focus on class, and Chayanovian approaches that highlight the dynamics within farming families. The empirical evidence for testing these conce…
The economic potential of agroecology: Empirical evidence from Europe
Land concentration and land grabbing in Europe: A preliminary analysis
This article offers three insights. First, the renewed global land rush is indeed global: it occurs in the Global North too. Second, the ongoing trend of (generic) land concentration is just as problematic as land grabbing. Third, political processes involving actors at various sites and levels of the state and society mediate corporate and state interests in land, sometimes producing untended outcomes. New “deal brokers” (in finance, business an…
Forum: Fifty years of debate on peasantries, 1966-2016
Ben WhiteThe idea for this discussion originated in a wooden cabin in the Dutch polders in the late summer of 2015. Harriet Friedmann responded enthusiastically to my observation that the Internati
The Food Crisis, Industrialized Farming and the Imperial Regime
This paper argues that the food crisis cannot solely be equated with abrupt food price increases or seen as merely market induced. The unprecedented price increases of the first half of 2008, and the extremely low prices that followed, are expressions of a far wider and far more persistent underlying crisis, which has been germinating for more than a decade. It is the complex outcome of several combined processes, including the industrialization …
Rural Sociology and the New Agrarian Question a Perspective From the Netherlands
Demythologizing Planned Intervention: An Actor Perspective
Multiple job holding in rural villages and the Chinese road to development
This paper examines some of the interrelations that exist between rural China's peasant economy and the wider economy in which it is embedded. In doing so it focuses on the circular flows that link town and countryside. Multiple job holding is strategic in this respect. The paper draws on research undertaken in a peasant village in Hebei Province. The research highlights some remarkable differences that exist between development processes in Chin…
From de-to repeasantization: The modernization of agriculture revisited
Revitalizing Agriculture: Farming Economically as Starting Ground for Rural Development
Many of the attempts to construct sustainable rural livelihoods involve a shift away from agriculture's traditional 'core' activities by means of a diversification with new on-farm activities or 'conversion' to quality modes of production. This raises the question of how we should conceptualize the role of those enterprises that fall into the vast category of 'main-stream' farms within the process of rural development. By discussing the style of …
Peasants, time and the land: The social organization of farming in China
Behind the 'Redux: A Rejoinder to David Goodman
Reading markets politically: On the Transformativity and Relevance of Peasant Markets
This paper discusses how newly constructed peasant markets are increasingly extending beyond the boundaries (and limits) of the local. This brings their new potentials in relevance and transformativity. The paper includes a comprehensive definition of peasant markets. It is also meant as a reply to those who argue that capitalism cannot be fought by using one of its main mechanisms: 'the market'. By presenting three case studies that describe dif…
Patterns of Farming Logic, Structuration of Labour and Impact of Externalization: Changing Dairy Farming in Northern Italy
In this article two different patterns of farming logic are analysed. Farming consists in practice of a range of different tasks coordinated in a coherent way and, at the same time, oriented towards the specific goals of the farmer. This coordination and goal-orientation are structured by a logical pattern. Contrary to familiar presuppositions, it can be demonstrated that within one homogeneous environment, different patterns of farming logic are…
The importance of peasant agriculture: A Neglected Truth
Trajetórias do desenvolvimento rural: Pesquisa Comparativa Internacional
Este artigo traz uma reflexão crítica sobre a análise comparativa dos processos de desenvolvimento rural no Brasil, na União Europeia e na China. Argumenta-se que os elementos contextuais e/ou as características do processo, em grande parte ignorados em abordagens do tipo estudo de caso (seja porque são mais ou menos invisíveis e/ou porque são mais ou menos autoevidentes), podem vir à tona através de uma abordagem comparativa. Ao mesmo tempo, a n…
New Challenges in the Sociology of Rural Development: A Rejoinder to Peter Vandergeest
Patterns of Farming Logic, Structuration of Labour and Impact of Externalization: Changing Dairy Farming in Northern Italy
In this article two different patterns of farming logic are analysed. Farming consists in practice of a range of different tasks coordinated in a coherent way and, at the same time, oriented towards the specific goals of the farmer. This coordination and goal-orientation are structured by a logical pattern. Contrary to familiar presuppositions, it can be demonstrated that within one homogeneous environment, different patterns of farming logic are…
New Challenges in the Sociology of Rural Development: A Rejoinder to Peter Vandergeest
Demythologizing Planned Intervention: An Actor Perspective
Rural Sociology and the New Agrarian Question a Perspective From the Netherlands
Impact and Potential: A Comparative Review of European Rural Development Practices
Rural development practices are found throughout Europe and cover a wide range of different types of activity. At first sight there does not seem to be much similarity between these different practices. This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of some 30 cases of rural development from the different tracts of European countryside studied in the first phase of the impact research programme. The paper summarizes several of the comm…
Revitalizing Agriculture: Farming Economically as Starting Ground for Rural Development
Many of the attempts to construct sustainable rural livelihoods involve a shift away from agriculture's traditional 'core' activities by means of a diversification with new on-farm activities or 'conversion' to quality modes of production. This raises the question of how we should conceptualize the role of those enterprises that fall into the vast category of 'main-stream' farms within the process of rural development. By discussing the style of …
Rural Development: From Practices and Policies towards Theory
Both in practice and policy a new model of rural development is emerging. This paper reflects the discussions in the impact research programme and suggests that at the level of associated theory also a fundamental shift is taking place. The modernization paradigm that once dominated policy, practice and theory is being replaced by a new rural development paradigm. Rural development is analyzed as a multi-level, multi-actor and multi-facetted proc…
Behind the 'Redux: A Rejoinder to David Goodman
The imperial conquest and reordering of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food: A Theoretical Contribution
Empire is a new mode of ordering and governance. Food empires are monopolistic networks that control large, and expanding, parts of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. But food empires are not necessarily involved in the physical realities associated with these processes. Food empires control the routing and the associated transformation of agricultural and food products. In this respect food empires clearly represen…
The Food Crisis, Industrialized Farming and the Imperial Regime
This paper argues that the food crisis cannot solely be equated with abrupt food price increases or seen as merely market induced. The unprecedented price increases of the first half of 2008, and the extremely low prices that followed, are expressions of a far wider and far more persistent underlying crisis, which has been germinating for more than a decade. It is the complex outcome of several combined processes, including the industrialization …
The peasantries of the twenty-first century: The Commoditisation Debate Revisited
This article examines the re-emergence of the peasantry. It argues that farming is increasingly being restructured in a peasant-like way. This restructuring is an actively constructed response to the agrarian crisis that has grown out of five decades of state-induced modernisation and is currently being accelerated by the financial crisis and the generalised economic depression. Through a process of restructuring that is both multi-dimensional an…
Multiple job holding in rural villages and the Chinese road to development
This paper examines some of the interrelations that exist between rural China's peasant economy and the wider economy in which it is embedded. In doing so it focuses on the circular flows that link town and countryside. Multiple job holding is strategic in this respect. The paper draws on research undertaken in a peasant village in Hebei Province. The research highlights some remarkable differences that exist between development processes in Chin…
Trajetórias do desenvolvimento rural: Pesquisa Comparativa Internacional
Este artigo traz uma reflexão crítica sobre a análise comparativa dos processos de desenvolvimento rural no Brasil, na União Europeia e na China. Argumenta-se que os elementos contextuais e/ou as características do processo, em grande parte ignorados em abordagens do tipo estudo de caso (seja porque são mais ou menos invisíveis e/ou porque são mais ou menos autoevidentes), podem vir à tona através de uma abordagem comparativa. Ao mesmo tempo, a n…
A History of World Agriculture. From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis - By Marcel Mazoyer and Laurence Roudart: Book Reviews
Rural development through the construction of new, nested, markets: Comparative perspectives from China, Brazil and the European Union
This article discusses and compares the rural development processes and practices currently occurring in China, Brazil and the European Union. Although these are strongly rooted in the specificities of time and space, they also share important commonalities. We argue that rural development can be viewed as an evolving set of responses to market failures. A key element of these responses is that they are unfolding through the construction of new m…
The Genesis and Further Unfolding of Farming Styles Research
This article summarizes the development of farming styles research in the Netherlands. It shows how these research results positively articulated with several new developments in Dutch agriculture. At the same time, though, these results also ran counter to the hegemonic views embodied in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Farmers Union and the Agricultural University. The article argues that the current agricultural crisis creates, more than ever …
Poverty Alleviation and Smallholder Agriculture: The Rural Poverty Report 2011
Peasants and the Art of Farming
Peasants, time and the land: The social organization of farming in China
Sustaining Food Production through Multifunctionality: The Dynamics of Large Farms in Italy
Theoretical approaches to multifunctional agriculture often posit a dichotomy between 'productivist' and multifunctional agriculture. However, this theoretical dichotomy runs counter to the tendency among many 'productivist' farms to now rely, to varying extents, on newly-developed multifunctional activities. In this article we identify four of the main controversies within the complex theoretical and political debates about multifunctional agric…
Peasant-driven agricultural growth and food sovereignty
The concept of food sovereignty presents us with an important theoretical and practical challenge. The political economy of agriculture can only take up this gauntlet through improving its understanding of the processes of agricultural growth. It is very difficult to address the issue of food sovereignty without such an understanding. Developing such an understanding involves (re)combining the political economy of agriculture with the Chayanovian…
Peasantry in the Twenty-First Century
Small works: Poverty and economic development in southwestern China
Can policymakers effectively reduce poverty? This fundamental question guides the powerful analysis elaborated in this book. Although the title Small works suggests some resemblance with Schumacher
Land concentration and land grabbing in Europe: A preliminary analysis
This article offers three insights. First, the renewed global land rush is indeed global: it occurs in the Global North too. Second, the ongoing trend of (generic) land concentration is just as problematic as land grabbing. Third, political processes involving actors at various sites and levels of the state and society mediate corporate and state interests in land, sometimes producing untended outcomes. New “deal brokers” (in finance, business an…
The importance of peasant agriculture: A Neglected Truth
Economics (26 works) · Political science (26 works) · Agriculture (25 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (25 works) · Geography (22 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Organic Food and Agriculture (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Social science (10 works)