Although rural areas share certain common characteristic's, individual districts and their communities exhibit many important differences. This study provides a detailed analysis of economic and social change in the nineteenth century in a specific rural upland area in the north Yorkshire Pennines. It is intended both to add to r the limited body of detailed knowledge which already exists in respect of rural, and specifically upland rural, areas and to test generalizations concerning the economic and social structure of such areas against the individual experience of Wensleydale and Swaledale. The major industries of the two dales in the nineteenth century, agriculture, mining, and textiles, formed the basis of the economy of many upland areas. The development and relative importance of these industries within Wensleydale and Swaledale is closely examined and compared with other areas in order to identify the uniqueness or otherwise of the extent and direction of change within the dales. The influence of local and non-local factors on the demise of two of these industries in the nineteenth century and on the structural changes in the third is also studied. The survival of upland areas in an increasingly industrialized and competitive society was constrained by inaccessibility. The extent to which road and rail transport assisted the two dales to overcome the problems of isolation is, therefore, examined. Although the present work is an economic and social study, it concerns itself primarily with economic change since a healthy economy was essential for the maintenance of a viable local community. The social condition of the community is studied in the context of its response to the rapidly changing economy in the nineteenth century. In particular, a detailed analysis is undertaken of the extent to which population growth and decline, and attendant migration, affected the well-being of the local community.

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Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / In this mini-thesis I explore the key characteristics of the farming household and the livelihood strategies they employ with particular reference to their farming systems. The study sought to determined the contribution made by agriculture to the total household income, as a means to justify for promoting booth subsistence and smallholder production as a policy direction. I established that rural households who are former labour tenants engage in both on and off farm income generating activities as a response to capital and labour accessibility. A fairly moderate contribution was made from cash cropping; however, I argue that the value could be much higher if considering high proportion of produce is for home consumption. There is a pattern where subsistence production intensifies to smallholder production with accessibility to water, high potential land and markets. I also found cattle herd sizes to be highly variable amongst households and goat production being correlated with a pattern of feminisation in agriculture. I give evidence that calls into doubt common claims of land degradation and instead call for more clearly defined communal range land management research. I then argue that farming systems are driven and adapted to farmer‟s non-static objectives and subsequent opportunistic strategies employed. This mini thesis concludes that with realistic comprehensive support to small scale agriculture there is potential for petty commodity production which will stimulate rural economies.

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This thesis is based on fieldwork carried out among weavers of rush-woven objects in rural Taiwan. In this thesis, I argue that nowadays rush-weaving is good work, though not good labour, for the weavers, and the social logic of Yuanli rush-weaving lies in the process of craft production. It is an ethnographic investigation into the practice of rush-weaving in association with colonialism, the heritage movement, and museum operation. Firstly, this thesis examines the economics and history and practice of craft production, in order to understand how the craft industry has become what it is and what is embedded in the process of production. The skill-based knowledge required of weavers is embedded in the relationship between a weaver and her environment. While this fundamental characteristic remains, new meanings and uses are attached to craft practice and the objects produced. Secondly, this thesis explores the process by which craft production is involved in the heritage and museum movement in contemporary Taiwan, so as to understand the interrelationship between craft production and the movement. I consider how ideas of tradition, heritage, and museums are perceived and enacted in everyday life, and find that these ideas contain contradictions and have different meanings for insiders and outsiders. The analysis as a whole seeks to explain why artisans keep weaving in contemporary society, and that it must be understood in terms of their continuous reaction to the constant transformation that the rush-weaving industry has undergone, which is reflected in the relationship between artisans and their objects in the process of production. The thesis addresses current issues – which are both fiercely contested in events and policies, and marginalised in everyday life – in Taiwan, but also attempts to contribute to the anthropological perspective on knowledge in practice, technology and social logics, past and present, and tradition and innovation.

Nepal occupies a unique global position as a peripheral social formation subject to decades of relative isolation from capitalism. Although the agrarian sector has long been understood to be dominated by pre-capitalist economic formations, it is important to examine whether contemporary changes underway in the country are transforming the rural economy. There has been an expansion of capitalist markets following economic liberalization and improvements in the transport infrastructure. Furthermore, neo-liberal commercialisation initiatives such as the Agriculture Perspective Plan provide the ideological justification and pre-conditions for the broader process of capitalist expansion, despite the pro-poor rhetoric. However, just as neo-liberal poverty alleviation strategy is flawed, there are also shortcomings in many Marxian understandings of the transition from pre-capitalist to capitalist agriculture in peripheral social formations. There is a tendency for political-economic theorists to assume the inevitable ‘dominance’ of capitalism, contradicting considerable evidence to the contrary from throughout the world. The central objective of this thesis is to understand how pre-capitalist economic formations have been able to ‘resist’ capitalist expansion in rural Nepal. There is a necessity to understand the mechanisms through which older ‘modes of production’ are reproduced, their articulations with other economic formations – including capitalism – and how they are situated globally. As a case study, one year’s fieldwork was completed on Nepal’s eastern Terai using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The research suggested that surplus appropriation through rent in a mode of production which can only be described as ‘semi-feudal’, has for a majority of farming households impeded accumulation and profitable commercialisation, a precondition for the emergence of capitalist relations. Semi-feudalism has been reproduced for decades internally by the political control over land and externally by Nepal’s subordinate position in the global economy. The latter process has constrained industrialization and rendered much of the peasantry dependent upon landlords who have no incentive to lower rents. The economic insecurity which has arisen in the context of semi-feudal production relations has allowed further forms of surplus appropriation in the sphere of circulation to flourish, through for example, interest on loans and price manipulation on commodity sales. This further hinders profitable commercialisation amongst both semi-feudal tenants and also owner cultivators who farm under what can be termed an ‘independent peasant’ mode of production. Even wealthier independent peasant producers who could potentially become capitalist farmers are constrained both by high cultural capital expenses, oligoposnistic activity by industry in the capitalist grain markets, and Indian rice imports which depress local prices. Furthermore, development initiatives which could potentially facilitate capitalist transition through the introduction of productivity boosting techniques have had limited success under the prevailing relations of production and the associated ideological relations of caste and gender. The above findings are of crucial significance if one is to develop policies and political strategies for equitable change in peripheral social formations such as Nepal.

<p>This paper has been awarded the Ronald S. Love Prize of the Western Society for French History in 2009.</p>