Les « arrangements de famille »: Equite et transmission d'une exploitation familiale viticole

Abstract

Inter vivos donations are a usual way of transmitting property in agriculture. The division of patrimony in "family agreements" raises economic, legal and affective issues. A long-term ethnographic study of vine-growing family farms in the Cognac region (Charente) gathers together parents and children (farm successor heirs and non-successor heirs) points of view on these settlements; points of view which depend on family farm socio-economic position and social trajectory of every heir. This article underlines uncertainties in the commitments at stake in those long term settlements. Two goals are in competition: siblings equity and family farm preservation.