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@dukuzumurenyi – a list of small farmer organizations in Southern and Eastern Afrika https://viacampesina.org/en/who-are-we/regions/south-and-east-africa/
Question: I’m seeing the work “peasant” as a global label for the ppl who farm at a small scale. This feels condescending and centers a hierarchy with “Land lord” at the core. What would be an Afrikan appropriate term for us to use instead of “peasant”?
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What is the etymology of ‘peasant’?-
Peasant:
* (https://etymologeek.com/eng/peasant) pejorative) An uncouth, crude or ill-bred person.. (strategy games) A worker unit.. A country person.. A member of the lowly social class that toils on the land, constituted by small farmers and tenants, sharecroppers, farmhands* (Merriam Webster) a member of a European class of persons tilling the soil as small landowners or as laborers
* (Etymology) “rural person of inferior rank or condition,” usually engaged in agricultural labor, early 15c., paisaunt, from Anglo-French paisant (early 14c.), Old French paisant, paisent “local inhabitant” (12c., Modern French paysan), earlier paisenc, from pais “country, region” (Modern French pays, from Latin pagus; see pagan) + Frankish suffix -enc “-ing.”
According to the OED almost all the meanings of peasant are demeaning, indeed they take the trouble to point out that it is a word which has effectively ceased to refer anyone in Britain, and is generally applied to agricultural communities in poor countries. Peasant is nowadays mostly used in Britain as a term of abuse. Not even agricultural labourers are referred to as ‘peasants’.
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