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Photo of Göran Djurfeldt

Göran Djurfeldt

Professor emeritus

Photo of Göran Djurfeldt

The ‘agrarian question’ in the rear view mirror – some personal reflections

Author

  • Göran Djurfeldt

Summary, in English

After a long career in studying agricultural and rural development, in the following paper I take the opportunity to reflect on these issues in the rear view mirror. The advantage of this is of course that my biographical time span now covers a considerable historical one, starting with the apocalyptic alarms over the population bomb at the end of the 60s, especially in Asia, and the widespread fears of all‐encompassing famines in India and elsewhere. To many of us who were then in development studies, Malthus, Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were soon overshadowed by the renaissance of Marxism and by the ‘dependistas’, in whose perspective development was a sham, and for whom the capitalist or imperialist peripheries were doomed to stagnation or even regression into increasing poverty.

Department/s

  • Sociology
  • Department of Human Geography

Publishing year

2017-08-30

Language

English

Document type

Conference paper

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • agrarian question
  • Chayanov
  • dependency theory
  • marxism

Conference name

Paper for the CROP-El Colegio de Mexico workshop Poverty and Peasant Persistence in the Contemporary World, Mexico City 13-15 March 2012

Conference date

2012-03-13 - 2012-03-15

Conference place

Mexico City, Mexico

Status

Unpublished