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DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY, Structure/Agency, Rural sociology, Development and…

- - - - Spencer (1820-1903)
        
        Connecting nature and society through super organic evolution
        → fertile environments (development, progress, innovation and civilazation) → large population → economic specialisation → greater political size → urbanisation
        
        Survival of the fittest (life-cycle) which was the idea of Social Darwinism
        
        Social Darwinism (19th century)
        
        survival of the fittest (Spencer)
        
        justify imperial conquest
        
        competitive industrial capitalism → economic domination by powerful
        
        Urbanisation (Spencer)
        
        Churchill Semple (1863-1932)
        Natural environments determined human's racial qualities + consciousness + productivity + level of economic development
        
        pro colonialism: expansion → growth of democracy + entrepeneurship
- - - - 5️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) social agency
        1. Focus on individual household members
        x agency of individuals
        → people are not just passive victims of poverty → they make choices and strategise
        2. Agency is not unlimited
        x Lack of land, money, etc limit choices, but:
        → do not erase initiative or creativity
        → adapt, resist, benefit
        3. Agency responds to more than just economics
        x people actions are driven by:
        → material self-interest
        → beliefs, values, identities
        
        6️⃣ Understanding & role of the state
        1. No fixed theoretical view
        x does not have a single theory (Marxist)
        x part of a wider context, mediating processes
        2. State's role = facilitating/limiting factor
        x does it help/block people's sustainable livelihoods
        x does it support/undermine household strategies
        3. Policy focus
        x bottom-up: household - change
        x community-led
        x participatory: inclusive decision making
        
        7️⃣ Key explanatory factors for rural change & development
        1. Livelihood diversification
        Changes in asset status (what households own or access) due to contexts, conditions, trends, institutions, and organizations.
        2. 3 General strategy types
        x agricultural intensification/extensification
        → increasing productivity
        Key assets: land, physical capital
        x non-agricultural rural employment
        → tourism, transport, trading
        Key assets: social networks, working capital
        x migration
        → rural-rural, rural-urban
        Key assets: financial capital
        
        Example:
        Grows rice- agriculture
        son migrates to city- migration
        wife sells food at the market- non-ag-self-employment
        
        8️⃣ Main actor-networks
        
        International development coop (World Bank)
        
        National government
        
        Rural development NGO's
        
        Academics, researchers
- - - - 3️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) social structures
        
        class relations structure society
        x distribution of wealth and economic opportunities
        x economic opportunities among socio-economic groups in society
        
        co-constitution with other axes of power, class is always shaped by:
        x gender
        x generation
        x race
        x ethnicity
        x caste
        → how class is lived and reproduced
      - Role of reproduction
        
        often invisible, unpaid, underpaid → essential to capitalism and rural development
        
        marginalized groups
        
        Feminist-Marxist (Nitya Rao):
        "Social reproduction is not outside of production, it's foundational to it."
      - 4️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) institutions
        Classic Marxist
        view on rural institutions:
        Backward; reflect class domination; need to be removed
        view on common property:
        obstacle to development; capitalist expansion
        
        economic structures determine social structures
        
        social institutions are products of the dominant class structure
        
        institutions reflect and reinforce class interests
        
        Rural institutions & class
        → common property
        
        obstacles to modernization and economic development: prevent capitalist investment and economic transformation
        
        seen as backward: reflect outdated class relations and resist capitalist development
        
        destined to be replaced: capitalism spreads, dismantle rural institutions → conflict → revolution
        
        Neo-liberal/modernisation perspectives:
        
        Common: believe in need to transform these structures → economic development
        
        Difference: Market-led reform vs revolution
        
        5️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) social agency
        
        Class-based and militant action
        x Actions are rooted in class struggle
        x Militant: assertive, confrontational, determined
        x Revolutionary or reformist
        x Armed/non-armed
        
        Class agency and class consciousness
        x Class agency: the capacity of a class to act collectively in its own interests
        
        Classi divisions
        x rural class: farmworkers vs landlords
        x beyond class: gender, generation, race, occupation
      - 6️⃣ Understanding & role of the state
        
        State as an instrument of class domination
        x laws, institutions, policies protect power of ruling class
        
        Public policy reflects class power
        x which class holds power
        x what alliances exist
        → policy is about class interest
        
        Why influence or capture the state
        x movements must organize to influence or seize power state
      - 7️⃣ Key explanatory factors for rural change & development
        1. Classic perspective (Lenin, 1899)
        Under capitalism, peasantry will not stay united:
        a) Rural bourgeoisie (wealthier peasants)
        x hire labor
        b) Rural proletariat (poor/landless)
        x sell their labor
        → peasantry disappears as a class
        Lenin:
        x rural communities are not homogeneous
        x concept of local community is misleading
        x rural areas have very different class positions and interests
        2. Contemporary perspective; beyond class
        Social differentiation: gender, age, race, migration status, occupation
        → unequal ways people access resources
        Perspective Bernstein:
        
        Who owns what?
        → land, capital, resources
        
        Who does what?
        → labor, gender roles, types of work
        
        Who gets what?
        → income, food, services, access to state support
        
        What do they do with it, and how?
        → investment, reproduction, saving
      - 8️⃣ Main actor-networks
        Class-based, anti-capitalist, social justice:
        
        Agrarian movements & farm workers unions
        x organized movements who mobilize land rights, fair wages
        
        Marxist Guerrilla movements
        x revolutionary (Lenin)
        
        3, Progressie state actors
        x Cuba, Venezuela
        
        International government organisations
        x FAO
- - - - Popkins (1979:
        
        peasants are rational individuals → own economic self-interest
        
        evaluate risks and benefits
        
        social structures matter only insofar as they affect individual utility
        → methodological individualism & economic rationality
    - - 4️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) institutions
        NE: economic efficiency is guaranteed when social relations are governed by:
        
        private property rights
        
        competitive markets: free market
        
        NIE: good governance and reliable legal system to:
        
        Secure private property rights
        
        Ensure market competition and entrepreneurial freedom
        
        Solve market failures (monopolie)
        
        Customs, traditions, norms not interfere in economic systems
        
        Western-style institutions are superior and must replace or reshape local practices (improve efficiency)
        
        5️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) social agency
        NE:
        Human agency: individuals acting on their intentions in ways that affect the world around them.
        
        individuals are fully rational and self-interested
        
        strategically weighing benefits and risks before acting
        
        maximize utility and profit
        
        social context is ignored: purely economic and individual (utility/profit)
        
        NIE:
        
        individuals are self-interested, but not perfectly rational
        
        decisions shaped by mental models: internal beliefs, experiences, cultural understanding
        
        decisions shaped in social and institutional context (legal systems, traditions, norms)
        
        when markets fail → individuals create institutions → improve outcomes
        
        Popkin (The rational peasant, 1979)
        
        cost-benefit calculations
        
        household welfare and survival (individual)
        
        action is often self-organised
        
        When & why:
        
        crisis or improve their welfare
        
        individual motivation, risk and reward (over tradition)
        
        reform or tame markets/governments
        
        6️⃣ Understanding & role of the state
        NE: "The policy of No Policy"
        
        minimum role of the state in economy
        
        political interventions only to
        → protect private property rights
        → maintain free markets
        → help individuals to maximize utility/profit
        (Washington Consensus 1980-1990)
        
        NIE: Institutions matter for Market Efficiency
        
        institutions support for efficient function of markets
        
        policies include:
        x safety nets (small farmers)
        x public-private partnerships (PPP's)
        x outsourcing state functions → NGO's
        
        7️⃣ Key explanatory factors for rural change & development
        NE:
        
        Change follows interventions through state, individual smallholders, or company interventions aimed at fixing market failures
        example: infrastructure development, investment reduces transaction costs, facilitate market access
        
        NIE:
        
        Change happens through institutional reforms that improve market information, increase competition, lower transaction costs
        example: palm oil contract farming in Indonesia to include smallholders in value chains
        
        8️⃣ Main actor-networks
        NE:
        
        International financial institutions: World Bank, IMF, Asian Developmend Bank
        
        United Nations: FAO, IFAD
        
        Major global corporations: Unilever
        
        NIE:
        these actors promote policies:
        
        structural adjustment programs
        
        supporting global capital interests
        
        → improving governance while supporting market efficiency and private sector development
- - - - 4️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) institutions
        
        Central rural institution: subsistence ethic
        → social principle → social insurance
        
        Moral economy: reciprocity-based relationships (wisselwerking): unequal relations where elite offer support in exchange for loyalty/services
        → patron-client (unequal reciprocity)
      - 5️⃣ Understanding & role of (rural) social agency
        
        Peasants rebel → subsistence ethic violated → moral economy is disrupted (how much is left)
        
        Weapons of the weak (Scott)
        x low risk
        x hidden
        x individual
        
        Rebellion triggers
        x unacceptable changes to survival norms
        
        6️⃣ Understanding & role of the state
        ME & RAP: Food sovereignty:
        → Right to define food systems
        
        bottom-up, grassroots: agency lies with peasants, not with state or market elites
        
        "not about us without us": subaltern vs elite
        
        subsistence ethic (moral right to survive) and moral economy
        
        ecological sustainability: embraces small-scale, family farming (Chayanov)
        
        cultural appropriateness: identity, tradition, dignity
        
        ME & RAP: Degrowth
        → Live well with less
        
        anti-overconsumption
        
        ecological farming
        
        rural sustainability
        
        ME & RAP: Role of the state
        → state is instrument of elite power
        → Don't seize; negotiate:
        
        right to subsistence
        
        farmers first
        
        small is beautiful
        
        7️⃣ Key explanatory factors for rural change & development
        1. Cyclical demographic differentiation (Chayanov)
        → peasant wealth/poverty depends on family structure and changes over time (young; poor, mature; middle, old; poorer)
        → differentiation not permanent class devision: temporary and reversible
        → protecting small family farms
        Lenin: class-based, polirazing, permanen
        Chayanov: demgraphic, cyclical, adaptive
        
        8️⃣ Main actor-networks
        
        small scale farmers
        
        global peasant movements (La via campesina)
        
        armed and radical movements (EZLN)
- - - - Conclusion:
        
        disasters: socially constructed
        
        disaster education is political
        
        shift from short-term management → transformative change
        
        included inequality or it will stay a technocratic fix
- - - - Modernisation Theory:
        Indsutralisation + urbanisation = development
        Rural areas:
        
        create food supply for urban areas
        
        create demand for industrial outputs to improve production and living standards
        → economic growth
        → industrialized economy
        
        Rostow (1960) The core idea of modernisation
        Rural areas = underdeveloped → industralisation → more workers to urban area
        Linear path development:
        underdeveloped traditional societies (rural) → modern societies (urban, industrial)
        
        economic growth requires extraction of resources from rural environment
        
        cities = engines of modernity
        
        Criticism (Marxist)
        
        exploitation rural areas
        
        binary categories (urban vs rural etc)
        
        urban infrastructure is only designed to support resource extraction
        
        Urban utopias and Western imaginaries
        
        "civilised city": centre of culture, order and governance (Plato)
        
        20th century dream of industrial modernity → plannen modern cities
        
        rural backwardness
        
        Outcomes of economic globalisation
        
        urban middle class
        
        Human Development Indicators (HDI) improved, but:
        x urbanisation poverty
        x environmental degradation
        x doubts about replicability
        
        Rethinking development
        
        Should development go beyond economic growth?
        
        What about livelihoods, happiness, culture?
        
        Development rethought from rural, non-western perspectives?
        
        Emerging complexity: What is urban and rural now?
        
        peri-urban areas
        
        definition urban/rural
        
        managing urban growth
- - - - Colonialism appealed to different social groups
        
        Colonialism was framed as a moral obligation, not a choice
        
        moral duty to civilize
        fait accompli: since colonies existed, they had to be administered responsibly
        
        League of Nations and the sacred trust of civilization
        
        After WWII: League of Nations that created the Mandate system: giving colonial powers "custodianship"
        
        quasi-religious discourse of a sacred trust of civilization: colonialism as a moral duty to civilize others
        
        Internationalization of colonial logic:
        
        global moral object
        
        stages of development
        
        today's development discourse
        
        Constructivism and the critique of universality
        Constructivism: all knowledge is historically and socially situated
        
        there is no universal path to development
        
        contrast Marxism → focus on material relations of production
        
        contrast Rist → how ideas are constructed and normalized over time: representation, framing, discourse, not just economic exploitation
        
        Differences between Rist & Marx:
        Focus of critique
        R: discourse and knowledge
        M: material conditions and class
        Form of power
        R: technology of power
        M: economic power
        Understanding of development
        R: constructed myth
        M: mechanism of capitalis expansion
        Proposed alternative
        R: deconstructing western models
        M: anti-capitalist revolution
- - - - Conclusion:
        
        conservation is political: shaped by history, power and economy
        
        mainstream models reproduce inequality
        
        convivial conservation: justice, inclusion, systemic change
        
        transformation requires political will → change in power against elite and capitalist domination