Peasant classes and primordial loyalties

Abstract

To establish a theoretical framework for the analysis of the social contexts of peasant political action, this article examines critically various approaches in social anthropology and Marxism. In the context of peasant societies, it considers the problematics comprehended in a distinction between a class‐in‐itself (an economic category) and a class‐for‐itself (a political group) recognising that the process of transformation of the one into the other is mediated by primordial ties such as those of kinship. For the analysis of such ties various approaches in social anthropology are examined, and emphasis is given to underlying conceptual problems in structural‐functional holism and methodological individualism in the light of a Marxist conception of the dialectical unity of man and society. It outlines an approach which seeks to extend the framework of class analysis.