Words speak louder than actions : the ’peasant’ dimension of the Confédération Paysanne’s alternative to industrial farming

Édouard Morena (1)

1 LADYSS - Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces

Through its historical account of the Confédération Paysanne (CP)'s origins and early years (France), this paper explores the ways in which ‘peasant’ discourses are shaped by non-peasant understandings of what ‘being a peasant’ should mean. As we shall see, far from reflecting an innate and immutable ‘peasant’ way of being or seeing, references to ‘peasantness’ and ‘peasant farming’ act as discursive tools to both unite a heterogeneous activist base (composed of marginal and marginalized farmers) and advance organizational interests. This requires the CP – and its predecessors – to respond to a series of external constraints. In the course of this paper, we shall also show how academics play an important mediating role in the process of constructing or adapting the CP's ‘peasant’ discourse.

Mots clés: Confédération Paysanne; Peasant movements; Peasantness

Domaines: Sociologie

Édouard Morena. Words speak louder than actions : the ’peasant’ dimension of the Confédération Paysanne’s alternative to industrial farming. Journal of Peasant Studies, 2014, pp.1-27. ⟨10.1080/03066150.2014.969716⟩. ⟨halshs-01157955⟩