The existence of agriculture and the autonomy of peasant community

Abstract

Deagrarianization represent the situation in which the village as the basis of agrarian life and its peasants deal with the pressure of destroying its existence as an agrarian community. Deagrarianization poses a real threat to peasant communities in developing countries. This study aimed to determine the efforts of peasants who still exist to maintain their agriculture and able to survive from the process of deagrarianization, and the forms of autonomy that grow in it. The research used a single case study approach. Data were obtained through participant observation and in-depth interviews on 28 peasants. The results showed that ideological autonomy could support the existence of peasant communities to survive the deagrarianization process. The peasant community could withstand the deagrarianization process because it has strong ideological autonomy. This ideological autonomy was manifested in strong and sustained subsistence farming ties in communal farming practices and kinship ties within the internal community. Through ideological autonomy, the peasant community was resistant to interventions from outside the community that are considered inconsistent with the community values. This resistant attitude was consistently undertaken by applying livelihoodonly on agricultural activity and identifying themselves firmly as peasants who continue to practice subsistence agriculture.