Paper short abstract:

The current state of world agriculture is the result of a long-term adaptation of peasants to industrial logics since ‘the green revolution’. Through the notion of ‘extended subsumption’, ethnographic theory is invited to widen our political imaginary in the Plantationocene.

Paper long abstract:

Based on historical examples from Scandinavian, this paper seeks to translate the comparative view on peasant adaptation in the Anthropocene into a theoretical discussion of the relation between (small scale) agriculture and the industries. In the global comparison of peasantries, it is argued, the notion of modes of production and modes of subsumption are of renewed analytical value. As a supplements to Marx’ theory of formal and real subsumption, this paper suggests a notion of extended subsumption as a framework for understanding how the peasant modes of production is subsumed under the logic of fossil capital through a series of economic and technological interventions without eliminating the relative autonomy of the modes of livelihood of the small-scale peasants.

Firstly, theorising how the introduction of machinery, artificial fertilisers and expertise into agriculture since the ‘Green Revolution’ shows that there are profound social contradictions at work between small scale peasants and the wider industry. Secondly, by analysing the process of extended subsumption as one in which social values and political strategies are united in their opposition, the paper invites for a discussion of the how ethnographies of the peasantry may widen our political imaginary in the Capitalocene.