Autonomy and repeasantization: Conceptual, analytical, and methodological problems

“Autonomy,” as a desirable state, is notion often used by food sovereignty-oriented farmer movements and scholars studying repeasantization. The term predominantly rather casually, relying on presumed meanings, but van der Ploeg's book New Peasantries seeks to elaborate particular meaning of autonomy characteristic feature the peasantry. desire farmers/peasants for formulated in tandem with agroecological agriculture, farmers' agency, locally “nested” markets, co-production nature, non-commoditized production, multiple kinds peasant resistance. This article identifies distinctive nature this take analyses its analytical, normative, political aspects. It develops several critiques regarding analytical shortcomings autonomy: methodological problem bias; limitations incompatibility intrinsic “relative” autonomy; neglect accumulation from below subtle class contradictions. Rather than centring or relative autonomy, authors argue shifting focus different types dependency relationships, ranging very exploitative those vital human flourishing.