Antara Rai Chowdhury (S133A005)

Instructor: Dr. Asmita Kabra

Course: Agrarian Environments

Something is missing and it is distorting the picture: A case for new rurality
Human cognition is configured in such a way that conceptual dichotomies are easier to handle
than complex reasoning. By its construction a dichotomy is a reductionist scheme, as it reduces
the multidimensionality of facts to two categories (Sindzingre, 2004, p. 23). Despite this
understanding Sindzingre goes on to label agriculture-industry & rural-urban as dichotomies
embedded in empirical phenomenon, something that the village case studies today seem to
contradict vehemently. This resonates the fact that rural-urban linkages, since its early
conceptions, are understood in a simplified manner and simplicity in conception, more often than
not, misses out on intricacies (and maybe crucial details too). Today there are many who look at
rural-urban linkages as dynamic process of synergies between agriculture and industry (Kay,
2009); where labor, information and finance flows along with food, raw material and
manufactured goods; and all of it flows both ways too. Funnell (1988) recognises that rural areas
also contain significant non- agricultural production activities and thus is required a further
extension of the exchange model beyond that based upon the assumption that rural incomes are
predominantly agricultural. Another approach questions whether an urban-rural framework
provides any useful insights beyond a simple locational differentiation. The significance of
remittances in the rural income was missed out for many years. For the rst time in human
history, more people live today in urban areas than in rural, and more rural people than ever
depend on remittances from urban and North- ern sites where family members have migrated to
work (Padoch et al. In Fairbairn et all, 2008), and despite this fact the poverty has a rural face. The
process of agrarian transformation has historial understanding, but the contemporary process of
agrarian transformation isnt the same and thus needs to be seen into again. The need to question
the simplified understanding, without considering the dynamism in the face of de-agrarianization
is recognised in the Journal of Peasant Studies anniversary collection (September 2014) wherein the
introductory essay highlights the blurring of the rural-urban relations and de-agrarianization
through hybrid livelihood among a few other debates. In this paper I will look at the
understanding of rural, and also the rural-urban relationship, wherein rural is predominantly
associated with farm activities only; arguing that creating binaries is a redundant activity, many a
times misleading too. The birds eye view of the rural-urban relationship will be juxtaposed against
the worms eye view to unpack the complexities of lived realities.

Development economics, unlike mainstream economics assured to look at aspects of development

in low income countries, but this time it would look beyond economic development, economic
growth, and structural change. The theories of underdevelopment were devised in the wake of
sectorization of the post WW II period and consequent liberation of a host of nations, as the
focus of growth theory shifted to the problems of the underdeveloped nations. A vicious cycle of
poverty was discovered and ways to overcome the same were being advised by Rosenstein-Rodan
(The Big Push Theory), Leibenstein (Critical Minimum Effort Thesis) Nelson (Low Level
Equilibrium Trap), Boeke (Sociological Dualism), Higgins (Technological Dualism), etc. A number
of models that focused on structural transformation of subsistence economy were propounded;
among these were the Lewis model and the Harris-Todaro model. Among all these models and
theories one can identify a binary created between agriculture and industry, between rural and
urban. The means to development had to be either of the two; one had to choose sides. The
question of which side to choose gave rise to a host of debates which may be called the
Agrarianists v/s Industrialisers debate (Riggs, 2006 & Kay, 2009).
Post WW II, drawing upon the historical experiences of the then developed nations, LDCs were
prescribed a transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. The only
means to (the linear conception of) development was industrialization. To break the vicious cycle
of poverty and underdevelopement, the remedy was structural change. Elaborating on the reasons
propagated for underdevelopment and the break-aways; underdevelopment is explained by capital
deficiency that acts both as a cause and consequence of a low level of real income, and/or the low
level of real income in the economy generates only a little demand for investment purposes,
resulting in low investment and perpetuation of underdevelopment and low income equilibrium,
and/or the illiteracy, lack of skills, deficient knowledge and factor immobility will keep the
resources unutilised, causing underdevelopment to perpetuate itself. The approaches can be
broadly classified in to two: the gradual and the big push. The gradual approach doesnt lobby for
governmental efforts to proliferate industrialisation, while the latter does. The gradual approach
advises to improve on agriculture before rapid industrialisation, whereas the big push approach
ignores the contribution of agriculture to development. A criticism of the later talks about agriculture
and industry being complementary to each other, that it is difficult to raise the superstructure of
industrialization on depressed agriculture. Rostows stages of growth also implies a linear
conception of development, wherein one must move from the traditional economy to a more
modern economy, implicitly letting out that the two may not co-exist in the ideal setting. The very
assumptions embedded in such remedies were a strict distinction between the
agricultural/rural/traditional and the industrial/urban/modern economy. While the agrarianists

tend to neglect industrys development and hence the role that agriculture can perform in the
process of industrialisation, the industrialisers tend to neglect agricultures development and hence
the role that industry can perform in the process of agricultural development (Kay, 2009, p.104).
The structural models and the theories of dualism are central to how the rural-urban relationship
was understood as a dichotomy. A dual society (Boeke) is characterised by the existence of an
advanced imported western system and an indigenous-pre-capitalist agriculture system. The
former is under western influence and supervision, which used advanced techniques and where
the average standard of living is high. The latter is native with low levels of technique, economic
and social welfare. Distinguishing the eastern society from the western, social dualism says that the
needs of an eastern society are limited, people are satisfied when their immediate needs are met;
that native industry has practically no organization, is without capital, technically helpless and
ignorant of the market. It also claims that the rural worker is immobile and has no desire to
migrate to an urban area; the academics has always been negative about migration (using migration
and distress migration interchangeably at most places). The Lewis two-sector model becomes the
general theory of the development process in labour-surplus underdeveloped economies. RanisFei model is a modification of the Lewis model, but both of them are criticised for the assumption
that migration of agricultural workers for rural to urban sectors paves the way for the solution of
the surplus manpower. Such a migration is not an easy process as it is constrained by various
socio-economic factors. Implicit in structural-change theories and explicit in internationaldependence theories is the notion of a world of dual societies, of rich nations and poor nations
and, in the developing countries, pockets of wealth within broad areas of poverty. Theories of
dualism believe that of the different sets of conditions than can co-exist in a space, some are
superior and others inferior. Although both the stages-of-growth theory and the structuralchange models implicitly make an assumption that dualism is not chronic but transitional, to
proponents of the dualistic development thesis, the facts of growing international inequalities
seem to refute it. De Janvrys (1981) functional dualism thesis, for example, posited that the
agricultural self-provisioning of semi-proletarianized farmers subsidized their workplace wages,
thereby allowing their continued marginalization and the viability of capitalist production
(Fairbairn, Fox, Isakson et all, 2014, p.660), making agricultural livelihoods a necessary aspect for
running capitalist system rather than just a transitional element of the economy. The linkages have
only complicated with globalization, adding the dynamics of international and global linkages to
the local and national ones. Rural areas of the developing world have become increasingly
integrated into the world economy through both production and consumption during the last
decades (Waroux & Chiche, 2013).

In the background of such economic explanations of the present, and prescriptions based on
historical experiences, the debate of agrarianists and industrialisers was underway. The euphoric
idea of industrialisation was supported by many prominent scholars of the time, believing that
surplus and less productive labor of the rural sector must be transferred to the more productive
industrial sector (Martin, 1945). It was after the first few decades of this stream of thought that
criticisms started coming up which would warn one of the dangers of over extraction of surplus
from the rural sector, resulting in the stagnation of the same. After the first two decades of rapid
industrialisation under ISI (import substituting industrialisation), problems had started cropping
up. The agrarianist arguments now gained momentum: the role of agricultural economy was
primary to eradicate poverty and achieve development. In these debates the rural-urban linkages
are seen as a flow of resources and labor, and it also looks at rural-agriculture and urban-industry
as two separate spaces with no overlapping. Also, they are conceived as static wherein reality is
dynamic. The national and global changes in policy & the social and cultural transformations have
an impact on these linkages. Rural and Urban is no more two separate spaces connected
through limited links but a continuum with complex web of inter-linkages, both ways. The
agriculture industry binary has weakened overtime with acknowledgement of the need of a
healthy and developed agricultural sector to feed industrial sector and expand its market, and for
an industrial sector that can bring innovation and new technology. The argument was that
agricultures productive and institutional links with the rest of the economy produce demand
incentives (rural household consumer demand) and supply incentives (agricultural goods without
rising prices) that promote modernisation. This approach to the economic roles of agriculture
suggested that the one-way path leading resources out of the rural communities ignored the full
growth potential of the agriculture sectors (Stringer & Pingali, 2004, p.1).

The limited acknowledgement of the rural-urban synergies clubbed with an increased flow
between the two has resulted in false paradigm for policies and their subsequent failures. To
understand agricultural development as rural development is a mistake many fall for. Today the
income non-farm activities is exponentially rising in the rural space, crossing the mark of the farm
activities at places. Riggs (2006) sums up the problems of the traditional way of looking at rural,
and the rural-urban divide:
No longer are the land rich necessarily also the prosperous in the village. No longer can we assume
that small farmer is better off than landless labourers (Lopez & Valdes, 2000).... No longer are

agriculture and farming the desired, default position of the rural households... And no longer should
we assume that agricultural development is the best way to promote rural development, and rural
development the best means of raising rural incomes and improving livelihoods (Deshingkar, 2005)
(p. 195).
The above indicates that farming is now a subsidiary activity for many in the rural space. Many
resort to migration or commuting to the nearest urban centre. One needs to unpack the idea of
who is the rural rich and the rural poor; and what are the effective ways to support the livelihood
of the rural poor. Du Toit and Nevez describe the creative and resourceful manners by which
poor South Africans cobble together complex livelihoods, these strategies muddle conventional
dichotomies: households straddle rural and urban spaces, combine formal and informal sources of
income, and draw upon the social care afforded by the state even as they generate revenue outside
of publicly regulated spaces (Fairbairn, Fox, Isakson et all, 2014, p.659). This is a recent village
study which highlights the complexity of livelihood strategies and the many linkages that it accrues
to. Land is no more central to the solution, as the inter-linkages are now closer, more dynamic
and diversified. If this aspect of the rural-urban linkages isnt acknowledged, an attempt to help
the poor of rural and urban will only create new poverty (Riggs).
The global development agency of World Bank always had a substantial impact on the discourse of
development. The WDR 2008 was titled Agriculture for Development. Kay (2009) points out
that it is the first time since 1982 that WDR focuses on agriculture in its yearly report. One of
three pathways out of poverty (according to WDR 2008) is focused on agriculture, the other two
concern increasing opportunities for non-farm activities and out-migration. It is commendable for
WDR to acknowledge the newer options, but the rural household have been already coping up
with poverty in similar ways. Positive impacts of mobility and remittances can be an important
pathway out of poverty, a path that is already taken if the recent village studies are to be taken as
an indicator. The casual suggestion to agriculture as a safety net, thus implying going out and
coming back to agriculture, lacks credibility. The critique by Li (2009) points out the loopholes in
such a prescription. The poorest are the ones who migrate and they have no land to come back to.
Many dont consider the option in lieu of socio-cultural reasons. The poorest in the village, the
one who also needs to migrate for livelihood, doesnt have the required social or physical capital
required for such a strategy. If reducing poverty and ensuring livelihood is the concern ...perhaps
the best way to conceptualise the issue is to seek to minimise the urban-rural dichotomy and seek
to understand the resource allocation problem within the family (Funnell, 1988, p.6).

Development policy and related research have adopted a simplified concept of rural and urban
areas, with the words rural referring more to remote farming areas and urban to crowded
cities. This view has facilitated the isolated treatment of issues affecting each space, and it has as a
result failed to acknowledge the important poverty-reducing inter-linkages that exist between the
two spaces and the many variants of the spaces. Lived realities say that the farming areas (loosely,
the very rural) and the megacity (loosely, the very urban) coexist along a continuum with multiple
types of flows and interactions happening between those two spaces, creating; say, the small cities
and the large villages and the peri-urban. To club these distinct understandings under just two
categories is to misrepresent the realities. If the dynamic and diversified inter-linkages cant be
generalised or theorised, it is better to let go of the activity, until a more apt method is devised,
than to disrupt their true understanding. Stark (1978) attempted to highlight the difficulties
involved in assessing the net flow of resources between urban and rural areas, pointing out that
data collected at a single point in time (the usual case) hardly suffices to capture the dynamic
relationship between the migrant and his rural home (Stark in Funnell, 1988, p. 6).
Unpacking conventional understanding poses new questions to be answered. In face of increasing
rural-urban linkages, is dispossession of land and the attached ideas of distress the reality or do
they promise new opportunities to the distressed rural population. The increasing evidence and
significance of migration has opened up an entirely new space for academic faculty. The
acknowledgement of accumulative migration (Deshingkar & Start, 2003) is a welcome addition.
The question remains whether the opportunity of livelihood that open up with the possibility of
migration always a pleasant move or does it lead to new forms of exploitation and vulnerabilities
that is yet to be captured? Diversification of livelihood has been captured in the recent decade,
but the diversified livelihood yet to be captured. Are these diversification distress driven or is there
an opportunity that is being captured? The implication of such diversification on development is
unknown, and if there exists any other links that are yet to be uncovered, such as Deshingkars
hypothesis that diversifying into activities that are not based on natural resources might reduce
ones incentive to participate in participatory resource management initiatives and thus pose
difficulty to efficient usage of CPR.
One case study* that I read to understand the links between market integration and low
agricultural productivity talks about low productivity (in agriculture) rural areas, telling us that
where livelihoods are constrained by resource limitations and the productivity of labor in farm
activities is low, it may result in a shift to nonfarm activities, which may under some conditions
improve wellbeing and relieve pressure on natural resources. The possibility of such a win-win

development pathway has important implications for development (Waroux & Chiche, 2013).
The increasing proportion of rural income is said to come from non-farm activities today and such
a hypothesis finds support here, where in a context of resource scarcity non-farm activities
allowed people to improve their material living conditions. New houses were often built on
valuable agricultural land rather than on steep slopes as earlier. Thus, limited dependency on
agriculture related livelihood resulting in carelessness in regard to natural resources and its
planning. Some agricultural activities were found to be abandoned in wake of development
outside village. One often links abandonment of agricultural activities as the precursor rather than
an effect of urban linkages. Migration and remittances, along with increased mobility and the
development of small towns, were important factors in the development of local non-farm
activities. It is important to note the existence of small towns and big villages, spaces where
economy is neither rural nor urban and thus when such categorisation or understanding is
imposed upon them the results are distorted. An increasing integration into the regional, national
and world economy changed peoples exchange relations with the market outside rural. The
dominant process of change was the reallocation of labor through the development of non-farm
activities, locally or through migration reliance on exchange, away from natural resources: such a
lived reality supports the argument that JPS puts forth regarding investigation of diversified
livelihood and the blurring rural-urban relations.
Another study** by Deshingkar looks at how the watershed development programs (WSD) have
impacted the livelihood of the inhabitants of the village, finding an improvement in their
livelihood. What is of interest is that the improvement in livelihood isnt directly related to
increased productivity in agriculture but also involves an increase in out-migration. Many village
studies in the last decade have shown a marked increase in circular, seasonal and other forms of
short-term migration, thus contradicting the mainstream view on rural livelihoods and establishing
that rural people have lives inextricably linked with urban areas (Deshingkar, 2006). The paper
looks into questions of migration that we encountered earlier in this essay. It provides evidence
that migration isnt always distress driven but an opportunity for many, an opportunity that has
emerged since the improved roads, communication networks and the sponge of expanding
informal economy. Another commonly accepted phenomenon is questioned/ or is supported with
further understanding; that the reason for out-migration isnt to escape exploitative relationships
only, but also economic benefits of better earnings (Deshingkar, 2006). The objective of most
watershed projects is to increase agricultural productivity, improved natural resource conservation
and better management of CPRs. A subsidiary objective is to increase short-term employment
opportunities in the village. The short term employment gains and the long term productivity

gains was expected to halt migration, an important objective of WSD programs (Deshingkar,
2006). In her comparison of macro trends of migration with village case studies, she analyses that
the two arent in harmony. The macro trends of migration which says that mobility is decreasing,
is not supported by the worms eye view of villages. New forces of push and pull are emerging,
ranging from commodity price crashes to population pressure, which are affecting migration
unlike other traditional reasons. There are new push and pull factors at play and thus
understanding migration and mobility in terms of previous forces is not a helpful activity. Despite
the success of WSD, the desired effect to halt migration might still not be effective. The reason
for the same is the partial understanding of rural-urban relations and peoples livelihood strategies,
and also missing out the complexities in rural people (a category which is a heterogeneous in
itself, it has been unpacked in the previous case study) and thus cant capture the varied responses
that could come up. Deshingkar (2006) lists out a few reasons for such a failure, i.e., he pace of
job creation isnt enough to cater to the increasing population, WSD benefits the richer farmers
only, improved asset base might actually enable one to migrate, and the labourer/landless hh may
no longer wish to pursue a agriculture based livelihood system.
A number of different factors in different situations have been possible. Some years ago, the
world embraced bio diversityand still does. Today, the world needs to embrace economic
diversity (Chen, 2012, p. 20). There seems a common plea to let go of the earlier conception of
rural-urban dichotomy and rural-agriculture and urban-industry dichotomy. Such partial
understanding distorts the efforts of poverty reduction and livelihood support, and creates new
misery instead. The plea is to rather direct research efforts towards understanding the dynamic
synergies of the rural-urban, to understand the many spaces in between. The rising significance of
the non-farm in rural space has witnessed acknowledgement, it demands further research so as to
exploit the same for better directed policy for getting closer to development (von Braun, 2007). Any
hurried theorization that may try to put a cover on experiences that are heterogeneous should be
avoided, as it may hamper the recent efforts to understand lived realities; which are more complex
than simple binaries with linearity of relations. A new rurality (Kay, 2008) is underway and it
must be perused.

References
1. Chen, M.A. (2012). The informal economy: Definition, theories and policies. Working Paper
No. 1, WIEGO.
2. **Deshingkar, P. (2006). Improved livelihoods in improved watersheds in India: Can
migration be mitigated? In Tacoli (Ed.) Earthscan Reader in Rural-Urban linkages. London:
Earthscan.
3. Funnell, D.C. (1988). Urban-rural linkages: Research themes and directions. Human
Geography, 70(2), 267-74.
4. Fairbairn, M., Fox, J., Isakson, S.R. et all. (2014). Introduction: New directions in agrarian
political economy. Journal of Peasant Studies. 41(5), 653-666.
5. Kay, C. (2008). Reections of Latin American rural studies in the neoliberal globalization
period: A new rurality? Development and Change, 39 (6), 91543.
6. Kay, C. (2009). Development strategies and rural development: Exploring synergies,
eradicating poverty. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(1), 103-137.
7. Li, T.M. (2009). Exit from agriculture: A step forward or a step backward for the rural
poor? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(3), 629-636.
8. Rigg, J. (2006). Land, farming, livelihood and poverty: Rethinking the links of the rural
South. World Development, 34(1), 180-202.
9. Stringer, R. & Pingali, P. (2004). Introduction. Journal of Agricultural and Development
Economics, 1(1), 1-5.
10. Tacoli, C. (2003). The links between urban and rural development. Environment &
Urbanization, 15(1), 3-12.
11. Von Braun, J. (2007). Rural-Urban linkages for growth, employment and poverty
reduction. Keynote (Plenary Session I) in the Fifth International Conference on the Ethiopian
Economy.
12. *Waroux, Y. & Chiche, J. (2013). Market integration, livelihood transitions and
environmental change in areas of low agricultural productivity: A case study from
Morocco. Human Ecology, 41, 535-545.