i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

studies of the so-called “peasantry” alone provides an exegesis of this juncture in the
history of northern Nicaragua’s coffee industry.
Anthropologists in the former branch of the literature view agriculture in small-
scale societies as a “total social fact” that binds communities together and guides
relations within communities. Valuable contributions from earlier ethnographies of local
agriculture include the evaluation of the social relations involved in rural agricultural
production and the insights gained regarding the internal cultural dynamics of small-scale
farming communities. For example, Conklin’s (1957) innovative research with the
Hanunoo of the Philippines explored a small-scale indigenous community whose
methods for resource management negotiated the delicate balance between humans and
their surroundings. However, the assumption that social equality exists in such societies
was a common early-twentieth-century anthropological misconception. Researchers who
sought examples of “pristine” social structures more often encountered competition,
hierarchy, and struggles surrounding agricultural production (Malinowski 1965 [1935];
Conklin 1957; Brown 1986; Descola 1994). This literature therefore affords insight into
the daily lived realities and cultural understandings within farming communities and
provides a model for approaching a better appraisal of small-scale agriculture in remote,
rural communities.
By contrast, ethnographic studies of the effects of modern agricultural
development have revealed several difficult outcomes for local communities. Post-WW II
peasant communities in Indonesia, Africa, and throughout the Third World have
struggled through agricultural programs that altered local practices, threatened local
farming knowledge, and ultimately failed to increase productivity and food security
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