The Filipino Peasant in the Modern World: Tradition, Change and Resilience

Abstract

This article examines a traditional upland peasant community subjected to change-oriented interventions from external state and nonstate forces. As a result, various modifications took place in the villages with the introduction of new technologies, crop diversification, market contacts, social differentiation, formal governmental structures, decline in the number of farmers, growth of a working class, increased contacts with and knowledge of the non-peasant external world, and physical separation of families. Using various analytical frameworks on the nature of peasant society via a modified peasant essentialist approach, agrarian change, rural development, social movements, everyday resistance, moral economy, and a history from below approach, this article depicts and analyzes how traditional peasant society is able to withstand the changes brought about by external factors and essentially retain its household-based small farm economy, socially-determined norms and practices, and feelings of community and solidarity.