Interpretations and strategies of rice farmers in Fontanetto Po (Italy)
On the basis of their fieldwork the two anthropologists portray experiences, subjective perceptions, and strategies of North Italian rice farmers. Automation and mechanization of rice production have changed life and coping strategies after World War II. This has been consequential on the social and cultural level as well: generational and gender work patterns have changed, as have time and space perception. Since professionalization of agrarian knowledge and the liberalization of the market have uprooted traditional life worlds the farmers have been forced to change production and subsistence strategies. Their views are quoted at length (in Italian and German translation). Part I of the book discusses historical facts of North Italian rice production, from medieval times to modernity. Part II deals with the most important political and economic developments on a European and global level since World War II that have influenced local production and farmer families in Northern Italy. The next part introduces portraits of individual families and ´biographies´, or histories, of the farming estates, followed by a discussion of the effects of modernization on social structure, including change in the work pattern during the last fifty years. Then, individual perceptions of time and space are discussed - individual forms of spatial orientation (e.g., inside, outside...), and a concluding chapter reflects results - the socio-economic consequences of mechanization for the farmers.
Keywords: rice farmers, farmers in Italy, mechanization, automatization, space perceptions, time perceptions, coping strategies, biographical method, polyphone anthropology, agrarian change, change and coping
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