People in Villages: Micro-level Studies in Political Economy

Abstract

Recent micro-level studies of rural communities in the developing areas address themselves to three basic issues: (1) What are the major external forces that determine the welfare of persons residing in rural areas? (2) How do peasants respond to these forces? (3) What ethical evaluations are to be made of the outcome of the encounter between peasant communities and the forces intruding upon them from their environment? By addressing these questions, and by formulating and utilizing explicit models of peasant behavior, these studies provide a coherent approach to the study of the developing areas.