Title: Choices and Constraints in the Pre-Industrial Countryside
Abstract: This chapter addresses a central tension between two sides of rural history – one stressing peasant choices, the other the constraints on those choices. For the one side, key concepts are 'individualism', 'autonomy', 'rationality', 'voluntarism', and 'agency'. For the other, they are 'class struggle', 'exploitation', 'extra-economic coercion', 'social structure', and 'institutions'. This chapter argues that both strands of analysis can deepen our understanding of the pre-industrial countryside – not just in England but in many other societies. But pursuing the one and ignoring the other can lead us astray. Only by attentiveness both to people's choices and to the constraints on those choices can we arrive at a just understanding of the particular rural society we are studying and of rural development more widely.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-12-18
Language: en
Type: preprint
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 21
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