Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0005-2260-0095
Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Sociology
Second Department
Environmental Analysis
Reader 1
Denise Ambriz
Reader 2
Melinda Herrold-Menzies
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2025 Natasha Yen
Abstract
Dominant neoliberal frameworks often frame smallholder farming through a deficiency lens, reducing it to metrics of productivity, efficiency, and profitability. These perspectives overlook the deeper material, cultural, and social significance that farming holds in the lives of smallholder farmers. In Botswana—where approximately 70% of the rural population engages in smallholder farming—farming remains a vital part of everyday life, yet few studies adopt a culturalist or holistic lens to examine its meaning. To center smallholder farmers’ lived experiences and perspectives, this study is based on semi-structured interviews with ten smallholder farmers in southeast Botswana. Grounded in a culturalist framework and critical agrarian studies, this research finds that smallholder farming is practiced as a “way of life”: (1) as a form of self-sufficiency that provides a source of livelihood and sustenance, and (2) as a cultural practice rooted in familial heritage and community networks. By highlighting the material, cultural, and social value of smallholder farming through an assets-based lens, this study challenges reductive paradigms and advocates for greater recognition of community knowledge in scholarly and development discourse.
Recommended Citation
Yen, Natasha, "Farming as Life: Reframing Smallholder Farming as a Site of Self-Sufficiency and Cultural Heritage in Botswana" (2025). Pitzer Senior Theses. 230.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pitzer_theses/230
Included in
Community-Based Research Commons, Rural Sociology Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons
