Peasants hold the key to a more sustainable future: sociologist Maryam Aslany
Sociologist Maryam Aslany argues in her new book that peasants remain a vital, often overlooked, buffer against climate catastrophe and modern industrial capitalism. She challenges the historical narrative that equates modernization with the disappearance of small-scale agriculture.
Why it matters
Re-evaluating the role of the peasantry provides a critical perspective on sustainable development and the environmental costs of industrialization.
Peasants hold the key to a more sustainable future: sociologist Maryam Aslany Interview left A farmer on the outskirts of Guwahati. RITU RAJ KONWAR https://th-i.thgim.com/public/society/f83jp3/article71592204.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/image.jpeg In her new book, Aslany says that peasants are humanity’s last buffer against climate catastrophe For millennia, peasants were at the heart of society. With industrialisation, they started getting marginalised. But they still make up a quarter of humanity. While they remain an integral part of modern capitalism, their contributions are erased, and the very ideology of the modern has come to be defined in opposition to everything peasant, argues Maryam Aslany, a sociologist of the countryside, in her new book, Peasants: Makers of the Modern World (Bloomsbury). Edited excerpts from an interview: left https://th-i.thgim.com/public/society/xnm1er/article71592221.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/Untitled%20design%20-%202026-10-16T165154.950.png Both the title and subtitle of your book are provocative.
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