Análisis Estocástico

The motivations for back-to-the-land migration are considered in detail in the following section, but merit a mention here as reflecting some disillusionment with contemporary capitalism and the work structures it imposes. This discontent is expressed by research participants with varying degrees of directness, but manages to remain a dominant theme in discussions about initial motivating factors. Because Italy’s industrial development lagged behind other Western European nations and the growth of its service-sector economy was similarly slow until the 1970s, it is possible to conclude that widespread disenchantment with urban work and consumption patterns had not set in on the same scale as it had in Switzerland and Germany. Another possibility is that the frustration was typically expressed through workers’ struggles and the traditional Marxism of the leftist political parties, whereas back-to-the-land migration largely represents a disengagement from workerist politics and the capitalist structures that enliven them. Post-war rural depopulation was dramatic in Italy, with less than 6% of the workforce concentrated in the primary sector by 1998 (Ginsborg, 2003:

340), down from 43% at the end of the Second World War (Bonifazi and Heins, 2003: 24).

According to analysis by Bonifazi and Heins (2003: 27), negative population growth in Italian settlements of less than 10,000 has been consistent since the 1960s. These stark facts offer some explanation as to why ‘nobody could understand’ what people like Martina and Stefan were doing when they arrived in the Umbrian countryside to set up as farmers. Martina describes seeing the ‘ugly face of capitalism’ in her job as a secretary for a pharmaceutical company in London, and her choice to go back-to-the-land was effort to create an alternative to what her urban life symbolised. It may not be the case that the ‘ugly face’ took an exceptionally long time to reveal itself to Italians, but rather that the reaction against it was dominated by urban actions – namely strikes, factory occupations and street protests (cf.

Hardt, 1996; Ginsborg, 2003: 54-62).

Figure 6.1 – WWOOF hosts’ length of time on current farm

Source: Questionnaire data

All of the Italian back-to-the-landers who gave interviews or acted as WWOOF hosts for this research began farming after 1995. Figure 5.2 shows that while nearly half of all WWOOF hosts have been on their current farms for over 15 years, a larger percentage are relatively new arrivals. Segregated by country of origin, 30% of Italian respondents have been on their farms

0

for less than 5 years, with less than half (41.5%) resident there for 15 years or more. This marks a notable contrast to non-Italians, who make up a quarter of questionnaire respondents. Among non-Italians, over 90% claim to come from non-rural backgrounds but over half have been on their farms for more than 15 years. Clearly there has been a time lag in Italians returning back-to-the-land, though the fact that only 19.5% of Italian respondents claim rural upbringings demonstrates that the movement has taken root in Italian culture. In fact the phrase contadini ritorni (return farmers [or in some readings, return peasants]) is widely understood by Italians to refer to both young people returning to ancestral farms as well as new farmers with no prior connection to the land.

The adoption of back-to-the-land ideals among Italians is possibly linked to the development of what Ginsborg (2003: 43) calls the ‘reflexive’ middle class. Following sociologists Lash and Urry (1994: 31-59, cited in Ginsborg, 2003), this group distinguishes itself as comprised of skilled workers who have been ‘turning an increasingly critical eye on modernity, upon [the middle class’s] origins and activity.’ The reflexive middle class, though relatively affluent, eschews much of the ‘enrichment and the material consumption of the modern world... [and] has shown a growing awareness of global dangers, of the damage wrought by unthinking consumption on the quality of everyday life, of the connections between private choices and public consequences.’ Later in his study, Ginsborg refers to these values as ‘post-materialist’.

Increasing proportionally from the 1980s (Figure 6.3), a period of accelerated economic growth, Italy’s urban middle class was concentrated in sectors such as education, artisanal manufacturing and the arts. According to Ginsborg, the reflexive among this cohort became increasingly vocal about their concerns, though the action they took in response was highly diverse. The idea of progress as synonymous with efficiency and growth, a culture of ravenous and conspicuous consumption, rampant political corruption and environmental degradation were all challenged by these workers and still find correlates in the discourse of Slow Food, which originated within the mainstream Italian Left (Ginsborg, 2003: Parasecoli, 2003; Parkins and Craig, 2006).

Figure 6.2 - Italy’s urban middle class as percentage of working population, 1951-93

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

% of working population

1951 1971 1983 1993

Year

Total

Private Sector Employees Public Employees Artisans

Shopkeepers and Traders

Source: Ginsborg (2003)

Statistics compiled by Ginsborg (2003: 337) show that in 1986-87, 14% of Italians aged between 15 and 44 could be said to express post-materialist values in social attitudes surveys, a figure that falls dramatically in older age cohorts. Interestingly, the growth in these values corresponds to the growth of structured or dependent employment for much of the working population, primarily service and public sector jobs with ‘enduring structures of command and obedience, and... rigidities of time’(Ginsborg, 2003: 51).

The Free Association (2010: 1023) writes that social movements ‘typically grow from “cramped spaces”, situations that are constricted by the impossibilities of the existing world with a way out barely imaginable.’ The idea of dependent employment as a ‘cramped space’ is applicable to the social contexts in which back-to-the-land migration begins to look like a desirable course of action. As Table 6.1 shows, a broad range of occupations had been attempted by back-to-the-landers before decisions to move to the countryside were activated. My intention is not to locate some essence amongst them that produces an urge to relocate and begin life anew.

Rather, I want to establish a context in which back-to-the-land migration appears as a realistic opportunity for some urban workers, a chance to leave the ‘cramped space’ and experiment with alternative or ‘open’ spaces. I am cautious about using the ‘reflexive middle class’

descriptor too categorically, as I do not wish to imply either that this is a consciously embraced group identity, or that it is in itself sufficient to explain back-to-the-land migration among Italians (see Section 6.4). It nevertheless provides a window on preliminary contexts in which radical change is desired, but where familiar ideological footholds of resistance, such as organised labour, have lost traction.

Because a broad range of age groups and nationalities are represented by the research participants, I have not attempted to explain the back-to-the-land phenomenon by way of demographic consistencies. Where sufficient context has been established, such as the accounts of German and Swiss ‘waves’, and in analysis of Italian social history, this has been addressed directly. Framing back-to-the-land migration as closely connected to socio-economic contexts at the national level, such as I have done with regard to Germany, Switzerland and Italy, is admittedly problematic as there will always be anomalies. There are still Germans arriving in Tuscany and there were pioneering Italian contadini ritorni as early as the 1960s. It is not possible to contextualise the origins of every back-to-the-lander as part of a wave, but where waves did descend on rural Italy they form an important part of the back-to-the-land story. Section 6.2 attempts to distil some of the motives for back-to-the-land migration and provide a fuller picture of the migrants’ origins and explanations for the lifestyle changes that they have made.

Figure 6.3 – Ristonchia, Tuscany

Almost entirely abandoned by the 1980s, the village’s old houses and surrounding land made an affordable base for a back-to-the-lander in 1982.

Source: Author

Box 6.2 - Back-to-the-land profiles: Giorgio (Umbria)

Giorgio moved to the Umbrian countryside from Switzerland in 1972, part of a sweep of Swiss and Germans that took advantage of the cheap and plentiful rural property in central Italy. A freelance photographer with a portfolio of commercial and gallery work, Giorgio found an abandoned house, completely without modern facilities (water, electricity, etc.) and rented it from the church for a nominal fee. He describes this as a symbolic charge, just enough to make the contract legal, when in actual fact they were effectively given the property to look after.

Giorgio and his friends began restoring the property, eventually installing water, electricity and heating, as well as bringing the land back to productivity. Many houses and farms had been left derelict in the area, and the region’s leftist political disposition proved favourable to back-to-the-land projects. In Switzerland, Giorgio claims, ‘you would find some doctor and university professors preaching revolution’, but family life remained politically conservative or generally disengaged. In 1970s Umbria, he says, ordinary families truly believed in the spirit of collectivism that characterised both the administrative approach of the region and the back-to-the-landers’ philosophy. He credits his neighbours as far more helpful than hostile, and received a lot of instruction about farming from local contadini who were living an extremely simple lifestyle.

More people joined Giorgio, including his future wife Margarete, a couple of years after the farm’s founding, once it had become more habitable. They raised goats, pigs, chickens and donkeys and grew grapes wine, grain, sunflowers and vegetables. Giorgio continued to do professional photography work, but he could afford to lighten his workload considerably once the land became productive enough to satisfy his basic needs.

Giorgio and Margarete moved into a nearby town in 2003 and turned the farm over to Sebastian, a younger, single Swiss man whose own experiments in self-sufficiency are now being articulated on the land.

6.2. Motives

Even where jobs remain steady over some years, work is controlled by the intense pace of machines and / or the expectations of one’s ‘teammates’ / co-workers.

There is little room for autonomy, a human pace, values and needs unmeasured by company profits or remuneration. Concurrent with the dispersion of production across regions, nations, and the planet, new technologies have been deployed to sap the work of human skill.

Carlsson (2008: 27)

Employing a classic trope of migration studies, it is useful to frame back-to-the-land migration in terms of basic push and pull factors. The desire to leave the city, move to the countryside and adopt farming should be understood within two distinct but complementary streams of influence: the push factors that drive people from the city and waged work and the pull of not only rural localities but the act of farming itself. Understanding the lure of farming in particular should help to contextualise back-to-the-landers as a distinct social group, putting them in a different frame from other migrants to the country. Addressing how work in the city is experienced by those who wish to leave it, and what role farming plays in their eventual decision to do so, should bring to light more of the specific attributes of this particular group.