Based on field research in eastern Finland not far from the Russian border, this book is an account of the main features of rural society in the area. It pays detailed attention to the adaptability of farming families in a rapidly changing world. Subjects treated include marriage and the family, work and mechanization, succession to farms, and the paradoxical combination of fierce individualism and co-operation. Two major themes of the book are the relation between law and custom, which is not always what it seems on the surface, and the complex interlocking of farm, family and the wider society.
- One of the few anthropological studies that are simultaneously 'alien' and highly developed. Deals with literate and educated farmers with highly mechanized farms
- A contribution to the rapidly expanding field of 'Europeanist' anthropology. Will also appeal to social historians, sociologists, rural economists
- Abrahams is a Cambridge University lecturer with a solid reputation for his earlier work in Tanzania and Uganda. Wrote the first book in the CSSA series
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Reviews & endorsements
'… a formidable account of social relationships and social institutions, the kind of systematic sociology that is all too often neglected in contemporary ethnography … Abrahams is to be commeneded for producing a thought-provoking study …'. Man

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Product details
- Date Published: June 2006
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521026451
- length: 224 pages
- dimensions: 228 x 151 x 14 mm
- weight: 0.352kg
- contains: 20 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. A strange eventful history
3. The origins of modern farming families
4. Family and farm
5. From generation to generation
6. Co-operation between farming families
7. Farming families in a changing world
Bibliography
Indexes.
Look Inside
Author
Ray Abrahams, University of Cambridge