Household and Class Relations: Peasants and Landlords in Northern Peru

Household and Class Relations offers an adept and multifaceted look at modern peasant family relation- ships. With the perspectives of an anthropologist and sociologist as well as those of an economist, Deere brings a fresh approach to the classic question: how do households continue to exist as units of production and reproduction in the face of their growing proletarianization and impoverishment? She draws upon rich life histories as well as archival and survey research to provide a regional history of the northern Peruvian highland province of Cajamarca since the turn of the century. Beginning with an examination of the hacienda system in the first four decades of this century, Household and Class Relations goes on to probe the development of agrarian capitalism in the postwar period and the peasant economy of the 1970s.

With this background firmly in place, Household and Class Relations then distinguishes itself through attention to the interaction between class and gender. Deere argues that the subordination of women has had high costs for the well-being of rural households, exacerbating peasant poverty. Further, she shows how peasant households have adopted a strategy of participating in multiple income generating activities in order to survive. Breaking new ground, her study examines how gender relations interact with class relations to explain social differentiation among peasants.

This is an exciting and stimulating study that will appeal to Latin Americanists, scholars of women’s studies, and economists. Wide-ranging and incisive, it will garner attention from many quarters.