Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1
Professor, Department of Social Development Studies, University of Tehran
2
Professor of Sociology at Payam Noor University
3
PhD in Sociology, Department of Social Development Studies, University of Tehran
Abstract
Results of the most conducted studies in the case of family farming system in Iran implies the economic instability of these units and, thus, the recognition of stability fields of these units has become one of the important matters that attracted the focus of researchers and planners. Regarding this issue, and while government policy and bias is more targeted towards large-scale operation units, the main question is that what factors have contributed to the resilience of family farming in the study covered area. To answer the research question, the conceptual space derived from Bourdieu’s social theory was used to provide a different sociological analysis of the reproduction mechanisms and survival of the family farming system. Data were collected using semi-structured interview technique with members of the 14 farmer families (35 interviews), and for data analysis, the qualitative content analysis strategy “the method of deductive category application” and the hypothetical coding technique were used. In the data analysis phase, the MAXQDA 2018 quality data analysis software was used and its “intercoder agreement” toolbar was utilized to increase the reliability. Findings analysis shows that members of the farmer families use various forms of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital to survive operation units, in which the role of symbolic capital is remarkable. The transformation of various forms of capital, together with the strategies for reproduction and re-conversion, ultimately leads to continuity (survival, transformation), or the end of the unit’s activity. Results reinforce the assumption that we must consider the element ‘family’ when investigating the family farming system. In fact, this paper, studying how to help all people involved in the business (farmer family members) to maintain a family-owned business, rather than concentrating solely on the role of the unit’s chief (based on literature review in Iran), shows that in the family farm field, different levels of people’s capital are used in ways that preserve the family farming system, and relationships between family members can also be affected by the different levels of capital. By increasing awareness of the function of various people’s capital, the family operation unit can make more use of these funds, especially if the use of capital is beneficial to the ‘transformation’ of family agriculture.
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