Abstract
Smallholders remain an important part of human-environment research, particularly in cultural and political ecology, peasant and development studies, and increasingly in land system and sustainability science. This introduction to the edited volume explores land use and livelihood issues among smallholders, in several disciplinary and subfield traditions. Specifically, we provide a short history of smallholder livelihood research in the human-environment tradition. We reflect on why, in an age of rapid globalization, smallholder land use and livelihoods still matter, both for land system science and as a reflection of concerns with inequality and poverty. Key themes that emerge from the papers in this volume include the importance of smallholder farming and land-use practices to questions of environmental sustainability, the dynamic reality of smallholder livelihoods, the challenges of vulnerability and adaptation in contemporary human-environment systems, and the structural and relative nature of the term “smallholder.” Overall these contributions show that smallholder studies are more pertinent than ever, especially in the face of global environmental change. Additionally, we argue that questions of smallholder identity, social difference, and teleconnections provide fertile areas of future research. We conclude that we need to re-envision who the smallholder is today and how this translates into modern human-environment smallholder studies.
Highlights
The Continued Importance of Smallholders TodayJacqueline M
Do these issues necessitate an understanding of change in smallholder systems, as we consider vulnerability and adaptation within these systems, they ask that we look to smallholder systems as sources of potential dynamism and adaptive possibility, for application to a variety of other production systems [57]
More explicit focus on smallholders in teleconnections research is needed, to understand questions including what agency smallholders have within different kinds of production chains; how smallholders are differentially impacted by various kinds of teleconnections; how the nature of various teleconnections shape land-use/land-cover change (LULCC), as well as smallholder social difference and identity; and how smallholder practices can, in turn, shape processes and outcomes elsewhere
Summary
Smallholders remain relevant today, if for no other reason than their continued sheer numbers and the total area devoted to their production [1]. Smallholders remain an important part of human-environment research, in cultural and political ecology, peasant and development studies, and increasingly in land system and sustainability science This edited volume explores land use and livelihood issues among smallholders, in a diversity of disciplinary and subfield traditions and mixed methods approaches. Chayanov [19] and Boserup [20], providing the empirical support for Boserup’s thesis about land pressures and intensification, which involved, at least partly, a non-market rationale, and paid explicit attention to how site-situation, especially environmental conditions, modified the intensification process [14,35] As this and ancillary research progressed, vibrations from critical geography and anthropology gave rise to political ecology [36], invigorated in part by challenges to the risk/hazard subfield addressing smallholders in the developing world [37]. There would appear to be significant synergies in understanding that could be gained by an improved appreciation and melding of interests among the cohorts
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
