Gehan Wijeyewardene

Taxation, Inheritance, and the Structure of Peasant Communities: Some Thoughts on the Manorial Model

IN a review of peasant studies Clifford Geertz notes that ’Although some of the classic figures from which the science traces its descent-Maine, Maitland, and Fustel de Coulanges-were concerned with peasant life, the research focus of the men who actually set its course-Morgan, Tylor, Boas, Malinowski and RadcliffeBrown-was overwhelmingly upon tribal society’.’ For a variety of reasons this trend has to some extent been reversed in recent years, though difficulties of theoretical communication remain between anthropologists concerned with tribal societies and those engaged with peasants. I point to this dichotomy not because I have any suggestions as to how the gap may be bridged, but to suggest that the theoretical preoccupations of British social anthropology and the community study approach may be a positive handicap in peasant studies. Geertz says of peasant community studies, that they are characterised by a ’general lack of theoretical vigor, sophistication and originality’.2 Criticism of the community study approach is not new. Maurice Freedman puts his finger on at least one of the fallacies involved in his 1962 Malinowski Memorial Lecture.