Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 384-396).

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 384-396).

This dissertation examines rural families responses to global and local situations that have made earning a livelihood as a farmer very difficult. Drawing from original research, including a household livelihood census of 195 households, interviews with 72 people, participant observation, and archival research, the dissertation explores how rural families have responded to declines in domestic agricultural markets fueled by global and national forces and local environmental change. It asks: what impact will small farming families responses to these forces of change have on peoples identities as peasants? I argue that while great change is underway in the countryside, peasant identity continues to flourish as people on the ground re-work and re-negotiate what it means to be a peasant. This research provides a voice to those often overlooked by macro-analyses of economic, political, or cultural development by providing rich ethnographic details on how global forces impact otherwise out-of-the way places. This dissertation critically examines what is meant by development and change, what development and change look like in a local, grounded context and what current trends can teach us about the future of rural areas both in Costa Rica and in other regions of the world experiencing similar phenomena: increasing educational opportunities for youth, a continued opening up of agricultural markets, a blurring of the line between the urban and the rural, and declining environmental quality.

In the second and first centuries BCE a series of three large-scale slave revolts erupted in Sicily and central Italy, each of which ravaged wide swathes of territory and were suppressed only after serious loss of life. These slave rebellions, which were unprecedented in Roman experience to that point, provoked horrified reactions from most ancient authors. Modern scholars have generally treated the late-Republican uprisings as isolated events, the unexpected consequence of military expansion. A focus on the label "slave," however, instead of on the social and economic roles of the specific rebels, has compartmentalized studies of the slave wars, allowing discussion only within the confines of Roman slavery studies. Since the rebel armies in each war were composed principally of agricultural laborers, a profitable comparison can be drawn from peasant uprisings and other manifestations of collective violence that occurred in throughout the Roman world. This study offers a new context for analyzing the slave wars, which re-integrates them into the broader sweep of Roman history and understands them as one manifestation of a broader pattern of social and cultural transformation.

This thesis examines the political and ideological struggles within Tswana chiefdoms in the Rustenburg district of the Western Transvaal in the period 1920 - 1940. This period was characterized by a spate of struggles against tribal chiefs which took on similar forms in most of the chiefdoms of the district. These challenges to chiefly political authority reflected a variety of underlying material interests which were rooted in the process of class formation resulting from the development of capitalist relations of production within the wider society. Despite the variations in material conditions in the different chiefdoms of the district, the forms of political and ideological resistance were very similar. The thesis examines the extent of the influences of Christian missions and national political organizations in these localized struggles, and also explores the relationship between chiefs, Native Affairs Department officials and the rural African population in the context of developing segregationist ideology during the inter-war period.

My dissertation concerns peasant resistance to transnational gold mines in Cajamarca, Peru. This resistance is founded on people's experiences as expressed in songs, stories, jokes, dreams and direct political actions in the face of tremendous repression. Peasant experience itself is a powerful spiritual weapon in the lucha. Through immersion in the struggle, I wish to give a glimpse of the peasants’ lives as they confront environmental catastrophe. My work seeks to represent this resistance movement from the inside, as much as is possible. It is heart wrenching to hear a woman sing a song about how she lost her son to the police mercenaries. These moments of communion reveal the spirit of the struggle and forge the bonds which energize the resistance movement. Threatened by the death of the Earth, there is now a resurgence in consciousness of the Pacha Mama ("Earth Mother" in Quechua) which I believe to be the latest manifestation of Andean messianism, the idea that the Inca and Andean gods will return to cast out the Spanish and redeem history.

Thesis (M.A.)--Addis Ababa University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-139).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität zu München, 1937. / Vita. Cover tilte. Includes bibliographical references (p. [97]-100).

Inaug.-diss.--Erlangen. / "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [142]-144.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität zu München, 1937. / Vita. Cover tilte. Includes bibliographical references (p. [97]-100).