El campesinado, un sujeto en la historiografía. Notas desde la galicia del franquismo

Abstract

During the decades of the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, peasant studies addressed a social class that had been the theme of much discussion and debate. The peasantry had been questioned as both a revolutionary subject and as an object of modernisation. From this moment of profound change, historians were focussing on another transition: that of feudalism to capitalism. Between this moment and today, remarkable epistemological changes have emerged. This article consists of a reflective exercise on the changes in the ways in which historians have thought about contemporary rural societies. Based on the microhistorical study of the transformations of the Gali-cian peasant communities of the Franco regime, we offer a concep-tual proposal from the perspective of critical theory. We argue that it is possible to conceptualise a history in conflict, to incorporate popular culture in its understanding, and to rid it of civilising prejudices.