Unpacking Dutch multifunctional agrarian pathways as processes of peasantisation and agrarianisation

The concepts of agrarianisation and peasantisation will be explored in relation to the emergence and unfolding of multifunctional farms in Dutch metropolitan rural areas. As will be postulated, the emergence of novel, more multifunctional pathways is closely interwoven with a re-positioning of the core functions of farming in rural development, a re-vitalization of family-farming, a re-definition of social-cultural farm boundaries and a redesign of professional identities in Dutch agriculture. Characterizing the specific features of these tendencies not only permits to further underpin the contradictory nature of contemporary processes of peasantisation and agrarianisation but also to demonstrate that these contradictions may be manifested simultaneously within rural spaces and places. Based on the specific balances between and co-evolution of these contradictory processes in Dutch rural settings, as embodied in diversifying multifunctional agrarian pathways, it will be further concluded that classical dichotomies as peasant versus entrepreneur or agriculture versus non-agriculture are increasingly incapable to grasp and unravel contemporary agricultural dynamics.