Paper Short Abstract:

In Hungary, the scientific discourse deals with the agricultural population on the basis of several narratives. Different policies talk about the same population in distinct categories. The presentation examines the extent to which the analytical categories meet the practical categories.

Paper Abstract:

In Hungary, the scientific discourse deals with the agricultural population on the basis of several narratives or conceptual orders. Among these, the most important are theories of embourgeoisement and the embourgeoisement debate, modernisation, social mobility, de-peasantisation, repeasantisation, acculturation, post-peasantisation and some theories of rural studies. While academic interpretation has moved away from class analysis and social stratification studies (embourgeoisement theories) towards more process-oriented approaches (modernisation, de-peasantisation, repeasantisation, social mobility), the diversity of theoretical approaches has led to taxonomic diversity among the social sciences dealing with rural and agricultural issues. (See e.g.: peasant, post-peasant, small-scale farmer/producer, agricultural entrepreneur, peasant embourgeoisement, peasant practices and/or entrepreneurial patterns/mentalities, peasant farming, smallholding, agricultural enterprise, etc.)

Meanwhile, different policies talk about the same population in terms of statistical, taxational (primary producer/farmer, (individual) entrepreneur, joint enterprise), legal (agriculturist), employment categories and of form of business (family (primary producer) smallholding, joint enterprise). Drawing on theoretical knowledge, decades of empirical experience and documentary analysis, my presentation will provide a summary of theoretical approaches and then examine the extent to which the analytical categories of academic discourse meet the practical categories of bureaucracy. I am trying to find an answer to the question of whether the rural, agricultural stratum in contemporary Hungary can be better understood and interpreted in terms of the analytical categories of science or the practical categories of bureaucracy.