The Transition of Rice Peasants, 1960–1980

This chapter argues that the transformation of peasants to urbanites was a complex and comprehensive process. The agrarian problem after WW II consisted not only of insufficient income or a lack of work but included poor social and cultural livelihood opportunities for the peasants and their children in the districts. Successive development plans have hardly provided for needs such as agrarian employment, further education and decent life conditions. Alternative employment arose in the districts, making part-time farming a structural feature of agrarian existence. This argument is structured as follows. Section 10.2 discusses the demographic shifts Suriname experienced after World War II. These shifts deepened the differentiation within the Girmitiya community and rendered the residuals of the agrarian human capital useless. Section 10.3 discusses the transformation of Nickerie into the rice barn of Suriname, while Sect. 10.4 argues that the urbanisation of the Girmitiya rice peasants was also a cultural process that took place in the city and within districts. Section 10.5 discusses the emigration to the Netherlands that affected agrarian production. These developments led to a shrivelling and blurring of the Girmitiya peasantry in Suriname.