Between the individual and the collective: change and stay in the middle class agroecological life project

Abstract

The present article seeks to contribute to the recent debates about the new dynamics of rurality and about the direction of these transformations based on the recent phenomenon of migration from cities to rural zones of individuals belonging to the so-called middle class. This task begins by discussing the middle class in theories of class analysis, discussing the adequacy and possibilities of the analytical instruments offered by these theories to analyze this social group. Having made this theoretical construction, we seek, based on semi-structured interviews, to reflect on the complexity of the phenomenon of migration from cities to the countryside and the option for agroecology by individuals from the urban middle class: here called the agroecological life project. This movement, motivated by a critique of the urban way of life, the capitalist logic of production and reproduction of material life, disregard for the environment, and the concern with the aggravation of the environmental issue, at the same time as it represents a great change, is also permeated by a culture and some class privileges from the social origin of these individuals, whose combination reflects beliefs of transformation from the individual sphere. After presenting the results of the interviews, the article seeks to reflect on how this migratory process and the proposal for change embedded in its present potentialities and limitations, as well as their connection with the fact that their actors originate from the middle class.