The Dictionary of Human Geography

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survival (hence the debates over peasant

persistence, de-peasantization and captured

peasants). It is probably safe to say that the

period from 1950 to 1975 witnessed an epochal

shift in which peasantry became for the first

time a global minority.

The proliferation of peasant studies in the

past 30 years has been the source of important

theoretical innovations in political economy

speaking to questions of commoditization,

class formation, resistance and rebellion

(Shanin, 1988). The study of peasants was also

key to the evolution ofcultural ecologyand

political ecologyinsofar as peasant know-

ledge and practice is an indispensable starting

point for the understanding of household man-

agement of resources, and hence the processes

of ecological change and rehabilitation (Watts,

1983a; Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987).

In the context of the transitions to and from

capitalism, the role of peasantry is central.

Barrington Moore (1966) argued that the rela-

tions between landlord and peasantry are fun-

damental in understanding the various routes

ofdemocracyand dictatorship in the modern

world. Peasant revolutions in Mexico, Algeria

and China, for example – the antithesis of the

idea of apolitical or tradition-laden peasantries

–havefundamentallyshapedthetwentiethcen-

tury (Skocpol, 1980). Kautsky (1988 [1899])

referred to theagrarian questionin western

Europe in the nineteenth century to underscore

the political ramifications of the new forms of

differentiation and proletarianization associ-

ated with growing commercialization, and the

political and strategic questions that arose from

peasant protest and struggle. One of the major

features of the period since 1989 and the decol-

lectivization of agriculture in the former social-

ist bloc has been the re-emergence of millions

of peasant households (re-peasantization) in

China, Russia and eastern Europe. The role of

peasants in post-socialist transitions has been a

crucial part of the political landscape in these

parts of the world and they represent intriguing

cases for the study of new forms of agrarian

capitalist trajectories (see Verdery, 1996;

Selenyi, 1998). In other parts of the world,

peasant entrepreneurial and political activism

has also gained momentum in India (Gidwani,

2008), Indonesia (Li, 2006) and Mexico

(Bobrow-Strain, 2007). mw

Suggested reading

Scott (1988).

performance A concept that ‘is, at this

moment, one of the most pervasive metaphors

in the human sciences’ (Thrift, 2000a, p. 225).

Its popularity has been tied to: current interest

in embodiment or habits of the body; non-

cognitive experiences and knowledges and

the production of social life through everyday

practices; and desires to de-naturalize social

categories and processes, create new political

opportunities and emphasize the creativity of

social life. Although different approaches to

performance share most of these objectives,

they also differ significantly in conceptions of

human agency, subjectivity and power

(Gregson and Rose, 2000), and tend to direct

attention to different geographies and spaces.

It is common to distinguish between four

approaches: a sociological dramaturgical

approach,performativity(often as outlined

by Butler), non-representational theory

and performance studies.

The sociological, dramaturgical approach is

typically traced to Erving Goffman’s ideas

about the codes of conduct that govern behav-

iour, and the various strategies that we use to

manage ourselves in the presence of others.

Social life is conceived as staged by conscious

agents who adhere to scripts. This is a geo-

graphical narrative that distinguishes front-of-

the-stage from backstage, and public from pri-

vate. Gregson and Rose (2000) argue that this

has been the most prevalent notion of per-

formance in geography. A number of studies

look at the performances demanded in

specific, usually service-sector, workplaces

(e.g. McDowell and Court, 1994). Davidson

(2003) develops the dramaturgical analogy to

consider agoraphobia as a kind of ‘stage fright’

that compels those suffering from it to restrict

their public performances to obviate the need

to engage in ‘impression management’.

Whereas the dramaturgical analogy implies

a conscious agent that exists prior to perform-

ances (Gregson and Rose, 2000),performa-

tivityoutlines a process through which social

subjects are produced through performances.

These are ‘command’ performances, regu-

lated by social norms, but possibilities for sub-

version arise from slippages between actual

performances and the norms/ideals that they

cite. Although Butler largely works in a tem-

poral rather than spatial register, she points to

the importance of geographical context for the

meaning of any performance: ‘subversiveness

is the kind of effect thatresists calculation...

the demarcation of context is ... already a

prefiguring of the result’ (1993b, p. 29).

Gregson and Rose (2000) have extended the

notion of performativity to space, arguing that

‘performances do not take place in already

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PERFORMANCE