Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Nov 2015)
FROM “PEASANT” TO “FARMER” IN GREEK MODERNITY: CONSTRUCTING FARMER IDENTITIES IN 19th - AND 20th - CENTURY GREECE
Abstract
Constructing the farmer in the 19th -and-20th political discourses in Greece pertains to a passage from the peasant to the farmer/farm worker and farmer/patriot, on to the professional farmer; this passage ought to be studied in terms of a specific model which is characterized by small-size family farm units. The above model was mainly promoted by bourgeois forces which led the modernization process in Greek society, and it was the model which the rival socialist movements consented to after their defeat in the Civil War. In the postwar period the acceleration of agricultural development, particularly following the country’s integration in the European Community, imposed a certain consensus in seeking a unitary model of agriculture, whereby the dominant role was assigned to the small farmer-landowner-entrepreneur. At the dawn of the new century, the European agricultural policy reforms entail new vicissitudes for the small landowner, who is now finding him/herself seeking new roles in order to be integrated into a post-industrial developmental model for the countryside. He/she is constituted, once more, a subject of new ontological ventures, such as, for instance, the much-discussed symbolisms of the “warden of the countryside”, and “protector of the environment” and/or the “national cultural heritage”.
