Family or Peasant Farming? Reflections And Tensions About The Concepts

Abstract

The discussion on peasant and family farmer today takes  much more than an ideological and conceptual nature. This debate, which currently carries a political importance is a reflection of the class struggle and the heterogeneity of the Brazilian countryside. In this logic we seek to present theoretical and conceptual synthesis of the concepts of peasant and family farmer exposing the main differences between these social subjects that make the Brazilian agrarian space. Based on this assumption, we seek to elucidate the conceptual differences that surround these two concepts starting from the initial idea that the peasant is meaning of resistance and struggle against capitalism and the family farmer represents the figure of the subject that tends to incorporate the capitalist system. In this field we bring some classic authors of agrarian geography from the perspective of strengthen the discussion and re-discuss the differences of these concepts that are often characterized as one, when in reality there is a great ideological and conceptual difference. We present this discussion in order to highlight the importance of political positioning as a peasant class on the premise of strengthening the struggle for land and resistance of the peasant while active social subject in the countryside and the peasantry as a social class.