RURALISM AS A WAY OF LIFE? STRATIFICATION AND VOLUNTARY

ASSOCIATIONS IN A TUSCAN VILLAGE’

Ij

ROBERT WADE

In the years since it was written Wirth’s celebrated article, ‘Urbanism as a way of life’a, has been subjected to a variety of criticisms. But even Dewey, who highlights Wirth’s confusion of the effects of popu- lation size and density with cultural influences which are independent of population variations, claims that ‘evidence seems to support’ the core of the argument: namely, that increasing size and density produces greater anonymity and greater division of labour, which in turn produces social heterogeneiy; under these conditions s o d re- lationships tend to become more impersonal and categorical, and prestige tends to be allocated by criteria other than qualities of personality or background whch one only becomes aware of through personal acquaintance. (Dewey 196o:bj ; Pahl 1968:26j).

One can bring evidence to bear on this argument either by looking at cities or by looking at villages (or more adequately, at both). This paper treats the village end, using material from the Tuscan village of Colombaio, population 700. One might expect that in such a small unit (one in which most of the population reside and work in the locality) prestige would be allocated by criteria which pay at- tention to an individual’s personal background (e.g. social position of family ancestors, cultured behaviour); that is, by critera which trcat the person ‘in the round‘ rather than segmentally, ‘on the flat’. One might expect, also, that the selection of leaders of voluntary as- sociations would be less influenced by a ‘flat’ attribute like present oc- cupation than in the #urban situation’(& la Wirth and Dewey), where the individual tends to meet any one person as a narrow functionary only.

SETTING

Colombaio, and the commune of which it is the administrative came

Robert Wa& (cupoluogo), is located in the western hills of Tuscmy, about I jo kms. north of Rome. Although it lies between the major lines of communi- cation down the peninsula, it has been relatively well connected to cities since before the turn of the twentieth century. Prior to the land reform cf the early ~gjos, the commune was almost entirely agricultural, the dominant form being the meTTadria sharefarming con- tract common throughout Central Italy: Colombaio village existed as a service centre and as a residence for agricultural labourers and small cultivators. In 1931 the village had a population of about 900.

The land reform strengthened farm agriculture and removed o p portunities for agricultural wage labour; rapid industrialisation in northern Italy in the late 1950s and early 1960s provided non-agri- cultural employment opportunities both outside and inside the commune. The result was a dedine in the commune’s population from 6,200 in 19j I to 3,910 in 19694; a smaller dedine in Colombaio village’s population from about 900 to 700; and a sharp dedine in the proportion of the village population which depends on agriculture. Today (1969) less than a fifth of the resident labour force (males between 18 and 61, 201 in total)5 depend on agriculture; a third are workers (in manufacturing, construction, state services); another quarter are self-employed merchants and artisans, just under a fifth are professionals, office workers, and teachers; and a tenth are students. In the post war years there has been considerable mobility; most of the salaried employees and professionals are the sons of merchants, art isans and workers. Just over a quarter of the workers, and a negligible fraction of the other categories, work outside the com- mune, commuting on a daily or in some cases weekly basis. Almost half of the resident professionals and office workers were born outside the commune; less than a fifth ofthe other categories are from outside. Finally, it should be noted that the standard of living, even of the poorest 40%, is high in comparison with South Italy; televisions, cars, refrigerators and washing machines are common, even among labourers.6

P R E S T I G E

The criteria used by Colombesi for evaluating prestige were investi- gated by means of a ranking test, in which informants were asked to place individuals according to thcirposiqionc sociufe(a notion which pre- liminary interviews had shown to be a central dimension of rank). Posiqion sociuk, as used by my informants, is an overall assessment of

Ruralism as a way of lye t47 worth or standing constant across many contexts, based more on which roles a person plays than on the way he performs them or in his personal qualities of likability, sincerity and morality. It corresponds roughly with the meaning some sociologists have given to ‘prestige’:

“An individual hu high p d g e when his neighbouts in g t n d have an attitude of respect towards him. Anothci word that is often uxd for this attitude is dcfacny or the granting of social honour.” (Kahl. Quoted in Silverman 1966, p. 907).

The method is designed to find out what criteria people use in prestige judgements even though they themselves may not, indeed probably will not, be aware of what these criteria are. It aims to get informants to simulate their own operations in everyday life, so that knowledge about prestige perceptions emerges piecemeal from specific judge- ments about particular individual^.^

The important result for this discussion is that all the rankers placed most weight on a person’s present occupation. Whether a person’s parents were rich or poor, whether they lived in the village or the countryside, whether he himself began adult life rich or poor, whether his behaviour is ‘cultured’, makes very little difference to the way his prestige is evaluated. What matters is how he currently gets a living.

The point of interest is not simply that occupation is the dominant criterion for the allocation of social position; one wants to know what aspects of occupation are perceived as significant. All the d e r s emphasized the eschange and coercive aspects of occupation, the capacity to give favours and demand cornpliancc.8 Take, for example, the schoolmaster’s comment on Erico, a minor commune official responsible for handling permits and applications: He could go with thue (a higher subcategory) or the (the adjacent lowa subcategory). But I think he goes with the latter: in his position he can give favours ( p k m ~ , many people need his help; it is a position which he succeeds in buying, I’m sorry to say.

The wife of an unskilled labourer used the same criterion: He (Erico) is now a commune official. He a n go with Palmicro (the commune accountant). He now has m o offices, and they are more important than Polmiao’s; when one goes to the commune building one needs him more than Palmicro.

The case of Erico is important for the conclusion that my informants’ allocation of social position was explained by them in terms of present occupation. He and his brother grew up in the countryside, sons of a farmer; they then moved into the village and set up a barber’s shop; only some 10 years ago did Erico manage to enter the commune administration Although this history is well known none of my

248 Robert W d informants referred to it in estimating his position. The sample contained several other cases of men with country origins, and in these also background is unimportant.B This is not to say that the mnking of individuals fits exactly with a ranking of occupations. Though broadly true there a ~ e many ex- ceptions. For example, four or the rankers (ie. half) placed Erico in the samo category as Bruno, a relatively prosperous electrical a p pliance d d u (the other four placed Erico above Bruno). Six rankers placed Ivo, a relatively prosperous barber, above Saviao, also a b a r k but notably less prosperous and popular. Similarly, six rankers placed Danilo, for many years the elected president of the Christian Democrat farmers’ union, above the other farmers, roughly on the same level as self-employed artisans and merchants; that is, above s c v d men wealthier and more educated than he, including most of the skilled workers. The contrast in the reasons for placing Danilo here given by the doctor and by the wife of the unskilled worker illustrate a more general point of difference bemeen the criteria used by high posixione rocicllc rankers and those of low posixione Jociaie. The doctor commented : Dado is e s t d . He has a cutain facility with words in comparison to this level of education, and he knows how to w this hcility in certain circumstancu. Because of thk many pcoplc listen to what he has to say.

The unskilled worker’s wife explained: D d o hy always been a h e r . But he has also been in the organisations, in the trade U~OM (imkuti). . . . He and hldo (hia son) arc considered more because they have been in thcsc organisations. Mvlp pcoplc have need of thcm to get their help; so they are considered a little more.

The doctor said that Danilo is higher than other farmers because of his inffuence and his position of responsibility; the wife of the un- skilled worker judged his position higher because people need him more than they do other farmers.

The dif€ercnce is a genual one: the rankers of high posixione sociale tended to think in tams of the amount of ‘influence’ a person has, and they recognized as indicators of influence not only formal oc- cupational position but also factors such as position in voluntary assoaations, participation in community activities, ability to hold one’s own in an argument (the latter indicators tended to be more relevant in the middle ranges than in the top or bottom of their tankings). Where performance by these indicators exceeded that of other persons in the same occupational category, social position was

249 &rdism a a way of rifc slightly - but no more than slightly - raised. The rankem of low pob@n8 iociale, on the other hand, tended to emphasize ‘need‘ and placed little weight on factors other than access to resources. Since access to resources is largely determined by occupation, their r h g s correspond closely with an occupational ranking, but in the few cases where a person, though of low occupational position, held an office which gave him access to bureaucratic resources (Dado, for a m p l e ) his social position ureeded his occupational position.

These results contrast significantly with those Silvermen obtained with a similar method in an Umbrian village (Central Italy).ll There, occupation per IU seems to be less important; her informats gave importance to ‘good name’, cultured behaviour, length of residence in the village, social position of family ancestors, and they used ‘village or country identification’ as a fundamental contrast.12

The reasons for the difference between Colombaio and Colleverde - the Umbrian village - are not entirely clear, but a few points can be made: First, Silverman used only three informants, two of whom were of high status, and it is possible that her emphasis onascribed, non-exchange attributes reflects the common propensity for high status people to use criteria of worth which do not depend simply on current position. Second, Colleverde is smaller than Colombaio, about 300 compared to Colombaio’s 700. Yet it may be doubted whether this difference alone would account for more than a tiny part of the difference in prestige criteria; for Colombaio is not too large for practically everyone to know everyone else, and it is this which important for the Wirth-Dewey argument.

Thirdly, the landlord group in Colleverde has until recently been a much more important channel by which Colleverdesi participated in the larger society than was the case in Colombaio after the beginning of the twentieth century. The Colleverde landlords lived in the village13, while most in Colombaio commune lived in regional cities and took little interest in their land. Moreover, Colombaio was the administrative centre of a much larger commune than Colleverde, and therefore had a larger number of office-workers and professionals, many of them outsiders. Stable patron-dent links were much weaker than in Colleverde. This, one expects, would produce more imperso- nal, ‘flatter’ prestige evaluations.

Finally, and related to the last point, a much larger proportion of Colombaio’s population has always depended on relatively impersonal employer-employee relations for getting a living. Before the land reform wage labour in agriculture was an important source of

Robert Waai

income for many villagers: a part of most large estates was worked directly by the owner himself, using hired labourers, and the mexxadria tenant farmers tended to hire labourers rather than enter exchange arrangements between themselves. In both respects agricultural orga- nization in Colombaio contrasts with that in Colleverde, where there was little opportunity for wage labour and where tenant farmers engaged in substantial work exchanges.14

These village-level contrasts may in turn reflect contrasts in the patterns of regional development. Tuscany, where Colombaio is located, has for centuries had a stronger urban tradition, a larger manufacturing base, and above all, more powerful central state organization than Umbria, Colleverde’s region. Thus one might expect that throughout rural Tuscany occupation would be more important in prestige allocation, while in Umbria property would be more important - and not only property per se but also the penumbra criteria in terms of which those with property jusufy their right to exclude others from its use (such as ‘cultured behavior’, position of family ancestors).

What this suggests, then, is that size itself (taking density to be the same in both villages) is not particularly important. Even in face-to-face units with a stable, locally oriented population, the criteria of prestige may in some conditions be notably impersonal and categorical, having little to do with factors which one learns through personal acquaintance.

L E A D E R S H I P I N V O L U N T A R Y A S S O C I A T I O N S

Nor are the Colombesi any more ‘rural’ when it comes to selecting officials of voluntary associations. Table I shows the correlation between occupation and leadership, where occupations are classified in four categories 9 5

I - professional, esecutive, managerial, subordinate office-workers, other non-manual salaried occupations

II - self-employed merchants and art isans IKI - manual workers (industry and agriculture) and farmers IV - students

Rwalism as a way of lye TABLE I : Occnpaiwtu of narmbm a d oflcialr of m h : ~ a~miation~

Type?

Left Political parties

(Pa + PSI) Centre (DC + PRI)

Festival organizations (con:raai)

High prestige organizations?

Low prestige organizations?

Total

2

2

3

2

3

I2

(4)

I

m rv I II lII Iv I

IIT Iv

I II ILI Iv I I1 ID IV I II m N

n

n

(I) (6)

1 7 9 13 84 80

2 0

25 67

64 21

16 29 21 29 10 29 9 '3

12 8

0 0

30 69 29 '9 37 4 4 8

I I 38 18 17

1 0 I 7 42 21 19 18 34

1 s

67 41

(7)

Z I 21 50

80 0

0

20

0

29 29 59 14

71 13

1 3 0

44 33 22

0

$ 2

t4 3

21

(8)

I :I I :4 2 :6 0

I : 2

I : m I : 11

I :4 I :6

I :4

I :4 I : I4 1193 1 :I

I :4 I : 14

0

I : I 1

I : 1 1

0

I :4 I :10

I : 16 I : 8

(9)

I :I I :8 1 :39

I :4

I :+

I : 1 6 I :as I : l o I : 17

I :13 I :72 1 :93

0

0

0

0

I :I1 I : 2 4 1 : 138 0

I :10

I :30

I :74 1 :47

NOTES

Column headings: (I) N. of organizations; ( 2 ) N. of members; (3) Size of committee; (4) Occupational rank; (I) % of members in each group; (6) % of officials in ach group; (7) % of main officials (president, secretary, treasurer ac) in each group; (8) ratio of number of members and number of officials in each group; (9) as for (8) but using number of main officials.

The table exdudes the consumer cooperative and the returned xrvicemen's wociation (the forma because the m e m h h i p list is hopelessly out of date, the lama because the secretary was unwilling to make it available). Only mala of 18 and over are induded. Membership figures for the confraternity and the contradr exdude members above 65, who are induded in figures for the other organisations. T h e table u d u d a the 17 women members of the Pro loco, the two women members of political parties, and al l women m h of the confraternity and c&u&. The total number of committee positions in village-based organisations is IJO: in addition to the 1x3 shown in the table, thcre are five positions occupied by women, five held u-oflicio, 20 in the committea of the

COMUIII~ cooperative and the returned savicanm’s, sir on the uri ri.iri commiacc (which administm the village wi c i i c i land - common land leased to individuals), plua one other. The uri civiri organisation has an ascribed membership, and although the corrunittcc is nominally elective, it is in fia m c d by cooptioa The dcdinc of agriculture in the village economy h;u made the committee moribund. As w d as thcse village associations there are scvenl commune-baaed organisations

which some villagem belong to as members and officials; for example, the commune adrmnuvativc council, the two famen’ unions (AIIeaqa hi Conhihi, C0Itimtot-i Dirm~’), the fumen’ ha l th l a d accident insunnce agency (Car4 Mdtu Ma&ttir Colthaw‘ Dintti), and the land reform cooperative. The ‘high pratige’ organisations indude the Pra lor0 and the spom dub, with I 39 and

91 rnembm rcspecdvcly. The ‘low pratige’ organisations indude the confraternity, the hunten’ association, and the band, with 250, 126, and 36 membm. Both the consumer coopaative and the returned scrvimen’s association would be classed as ‘low pratigc’.

. .

The overall picture is clear: a substantial diffuence exists in the proportions of members and officials, respectively, from each oc- cupational category. Group I accounts for 17% of the membership and 42% of the officials, (jz% of main officials). Group III includes 58% of members but 34% of officials (21% of main officials).

Expressed somewhat differently as a ratio of number of officials and number of members from each category, the same conclusion emerges: in I, one out of four members is an official; in TI, one out of ten; in ID one out of sixteen. Excepting the left-wing political parties, the relationship between occupation and leadership holds for each organization.

As would be expected, concentration of official positions in the hands of a single person tends to increase with occupational rank. Of the 78 men who hold the I 3 3 elective committee positions, those from group I have an average of 2.5 positions, those from 11, 1.4, those from III, 1 . 3 .

The correlation between leadership and occupation does not necessarily mean that the Colombesi use occupationper sc as a criterion of choice. Yet evidence from interviews and casual conversations suggests that they do indeed think primarily about a man’s occupation. What aspects of occupation do they consider?

First, they consider the skills a person’s job requires. It is believed that one needs to be not simply literate to take part in organisations, but also familiar with bureaucratic procedures such as rules of meetings, minute taking, and so on. More importantly, one must have the confidence to speak with others on more or less equal terms, to hold one’s end up in a discussion. People whose job involves clerical work, and even more so those who have bureaucratic respon- sibility or professional qualifications, are believed to have the necessq

RwuIism as a way glye 25 3 skills (and therefore the necessary conficence); the mere fact that they are employed in this kind of job is taken by people in manual work as an indication of their superior skills (tvhatevcr tbc ‘red Itate of tbeir ubilities). Low status people, on the other hand, indicate that at meetings they feel ‘subjection’ (zogge??ionc) when they face men with education who “say one thing to say something else, do one thing to achieve another”. If they open their mouth they risk malung a fool of themselves. Commonly, when asked to undertake a minor respon- sibility or join a committee their reply is: ‘‘I am no good at such

Secondly, people think of the cost of b e to a man in different occupations. It is believed that office-workers and professionals have short hours and secure incomes and can therefore more easily afford to spend their evenings in committee meetings. Most merchants have to keep their shops open for long periods since earnings depend on how much time they put into their business. The same applies to artisans. Workers spend the whole day at it, come home tired, and have no wish to stay up till midnight arguing in a committee or undertake a responsibility which might someday cut into their working day (and so into their income). Farmers are unwilling to commit themselves to something which might take them away from their farms at the wrong time.

A third aspect has to be inferred from behaviour for it is not directly stated. It is that expectations set in the occupational sphere - expectations in social relations between a clerk and a manual worker, for example - are carried over into authority roles in voluntary as- sociations. This might be called a ‘status consistency’ decision rule rather than an ‘individualism’ ru1Se, for it reflects the attempt to conform to expectations set elsewhere rather than to rnaxirnise personal advantage (though in this case the two rules produce the same decision). One would expect to find a strong tendency towards status consistency when people have been brought up in a society in which status aggregation occurs: where A is superior to B on the dimensions of wealth, power and prestige in all contexts. The extfeme

might be a feudal-aristocratic society; but even one such as Colombaio before the Second World War, where the state bureau- cracy was strong, might produce a similar, if weaker result.

These are some of the aspects of occupation which weigh heavily in a person’s vote for the committee members of voluntary associations, thereby producing a ‘status bias’ in committee composition. But the distribution of actual influence, as contrasted with authority, is in

things.”

2s4 Robert Wade

some organisations more skewed towards people in higher occupa- tions than the figures suggest; in others it is less.

The distinction is between associations which regularly have con- tact with large-scale organisations and those whose activities are confined to local people. In the Communist Party, for a m p l e , the single officeworku on the committee not only holds the principle position of authority (secretary) but also makes virtually all decisions ; and in the municipal council he is the only Communist Party rep- resentative to engage in debate. In the festival organisations ( c o n t r d ) , on the other hand, men in occupational categories II and III have more influence than their representation in committees would suggest, for the principle activity of the contrade is to build a float for an annual festival, a task which requires no contact with the outside world but plenty of manual labour. As a haal example, take the band: normally, when committee meetings involve routine matters connected with local &airs (e.g. arrangements for getting notice of meetings to players) everyone on the committee may participate. But on matters related to contact with large-sale organisations the distribution of influence changes drastically. When arrangements to attend com- memoration celebrations at Verdi’s birthplace were being discussed, all of the decisions were made by the I members of the committee while the III members (there are no IIs on the committee) came in on the wake of discussions and made occasional points about the welfare of band members during the trip.

But whde occupation is certainly important there is clearly more to it than t h i s , for the correlation between occupation and leadership is by no means perfect. Bottomore’s results for an English town of 13,000 show a much more pronounced bias: in the middle class, one in six members held official positions, in the lower middle-class, one in 28, in the working class, one in 81 (1954: 358). Allowing for problems of comparing his categories with those used in Colombaio, it is s t i l l fairly clear that the underrepresentation of the poorer groups is much greater than in Colombaio. This difference is in line with what one might expect from the Wirth-Dewey argument. But Williams’ description of Gosforth17, an English village about the same size as Colombaio, suggests that there too the bias is more pronounced than in Colombaio. What reasons account for the differences?

First of all, the Colombaio associations do not have significant resources to dispose of, nor can they exert significant iduence on the commune administration or the other (non-local) agencies whose decisions determine the local allocation of public funds. Thus, the

&ahm as a way of lifs 21

incentive for using associations to obtain resources or access to power is rather weak, probably (though the evidenceis scanty) weaker than in Bottomore’s town. Nordoes a position in an association secure recognition of power achieved elsewhere (i.e. in the occupational sphere). Gosforth’s associations had a large number of honorific positions filled by local notables; but such positions are totally absent in Colombaio. Finally, a structural feature of the associations themselves: in Colombaio the ratio of committee positions to mem- bership is 1:9, in Bottomore’s town, 1:zg. This in itself gives a Colombaio member a greater chance of being a committeeman, regardless of occupation.

C O N C L U S I O N

The material presented here suggests that the familiarity engendered by face-to-face contact across several social contexts does not have a significant effect on the allocation of prestige or on the spillover of occupational rank into authority roles in voluntary associations. Contrary to what the Wirth-Dewey argument leads us to expect, it may be doubted whether in substantially larger units within Tuscany prestige allocation or leadership selection would be made in terms of significantly more impersonal criteria. It may be doubted, in other words, whether Dewey’s revision of Wirth’s argument is, in the case of Tuscany, correct.

N O T E S

Field research in Colornbaio (a pseudonym) was arricd out between Dcccmba 1968 and June 1970, and again for six weeks in the summer of 1972, as part of a projm on European villages directed by F. G. Bailey and 6nanced by the Social Science Rcsearch Council. Financial support also came from the New Zealand Univenities Grants Com- mince. I am grateful to Ronald Dorc for illuminating cornmcou on an &a vasion of

Winh (1938). In addition to Dewey (1960), the question of s p a a t e rural and urban ‘ways of life’ is treated in Pahl(1968), &ensbag & KimW (1965), Frankenberg (1968), &II & Newby (1971). These various studies do not treat the particular aspecu docribcd here in sufficient detail for cornpison to be poQsiblc. ’ At fint sight the argument that increasing size produces greater division of labour may uun surprising. It might be more plausible to argue that industriahation produca both increased size of settlement and increased division of labour, and that thcsc produce anonymity and heterogeneity. But Dewey is careful to point out that ‘whereas a small mral community can present an unUaentiated occupational pattcm a city of a million most cerclinly cannot. Great complexity in the division of labour rmr &t in an industrial culture’s city, but a ceitlin minimum mut exist in incrrYing degree as the rizc a d density of the community inaeaau.’ (1960, p. 65).

P a F .

Robert Wadc 4 Part of th ia Mine is due to a boundary change which reduced the commune’s area from 20,300 ha. to 16.160 ha. I The figure of ZOI raident active mda coma from my own census, which giva a total village population of 669. The ofiicial census USQ a broader W t i o n of vihgc boundark and of what consatuta residence; with this the 1969 figure wouid be about 740. @ Furtha d& arc givm in Wade (1971, 1973 and forthcoming).

Eight rankcrs took part, four of high pariTioru mrirJI (doctor, schoolteacher, sch001- teacher’s wife, male university student), four of low poni@tu sock% (firma, unskilled labourer, unskilled labourer’s wife, wife of skilled labourer). Each ranker placed 68 nama of mcn living in or near the village. The cuds were presented to the ranker one at a time, and as each card amc up he placed it in relation to other ards akcady placed and commented on thc featura which influenced his judgement. For a more detailed description of a procedure similar in most ways to that which I used in Colombaio, sec Silverman (1966). a It should be noted that my informants made a distinction between p o s i z j o ~ sorid# and krfmrya. The latter tern was wd to refer strictly to behaviour. a Nor is muried/unmarcied a relevant consideration. I amke this point to contrast Colombaio as I LCC it with Davis’ view of Pisticci, a town in south Italy with a population of I~,OOO. Davis argua that marriage is a rim qua I(M for obtaining accua to power, ineumce and wealth; an unmarried man has little honour. (1969, p. 72, 80, jwiim). la It needs to bc noted that h i l o is a farmer of no more than average wealth and cdu- ation. l1 Silverman (1966). ‘Vige or country identification’ is not synonymous with ‘village or country occu-

pation/raidence’, since some fannus live in and are identi6cd with the village, othm live in the village but are identified with the countryside, nill othcrs - the majority - live in the counayside; and some artisans who live in the village are identified with the country- side. (Silverman 1966, p. 908-9). la See Silverman (1965).

There is also the point that Silverman did her study in I 96 I , I well after the ‘economic boom’ had taken place. For this reason. as well as the historical reasons, the Colombaio respondan used the criteria of a more industrialiscd society. I‘ These occupational ategoria were chosm on thc basis of the rcsuln of an occupational mking t a t given to some of thosc who performed the p s i ~ i o n r mrdt tat . la See Meeker (1971).

Williams (1956. pp. 121-128, ap. p. rq).

R E F E R E N C E S

ARENSBERG, C. M. & S. T. Kimbd (1965), Culture and community, (New York:

BELL, C & H. NEWBY (1971), Community studies, (London: Allen and Unwin). BOTTOMORE, THOMAS (1914)~ S o d stratification in voluntary organkations, in Social

Mobility in Britain, (ed.) D. V. Glw, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). DAVIS, J. (1969), Honour and politics in Pisticci, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropc+

D~WEY, R (1960). The rural-urban continuum: ral but relatively unimportan~ Amcrian

Hucourt, Bnce & World).

logical Institute.

Joumpl of Sociology 66,6046.

Rurolism as a w q of/$ 21 7 FRANXEN~XRG, R. (1969), Communities in Brit&, Social life in town and country,

MEEKER, B. F. (1971). D&ON and achange, American sodologid Review 36, 485 -491.

PAHL, R. E. (1968), The rural-urbm continuum, in: Readings in Urban Sociology, (4.) R. E. Pahl, (London: P a p o n Press). Reprinted from Sociologia Runlia, IV. 1966.

SILVERMAN, S. F. (1961). Patronage and community-nation relationships in Central

SILVERMAN, S. F. (1966). An ethnographic approach to d sati6cation: prestige in a Central Italian community, American Anthropologist 68, 899921.

W.ADE, R. H. (1971), Political behaviour and world-view in a Gntral Iralian village, in Gifts and Poison: The Politics of Reputation, (ed.) F. G. Bailey, (Oxford: Blackwell).

WADE, R H. (1973), Colombaio: stratification, innovation and conflict in an ItaIian village, in Compromise and Debate: the Politics of Innovation. (ed.) F. G. Bulcy, (Oxford: Blackwell).

WADE, R. H. (forthcoming), Colombaio, A village in North Italy: A study of politics and associations. (Provisional title).

WILLIAMS, W. M. (1936), T h e Sociology of an English village: Gosforth, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul)

WIRTH, LOUIS (1938), Urbanism as a way of life, American Journal of Sociology ec, 1-24.

(Pa@ Book4

Italy, Ethnology 4 172-189.

S U M M A R Y

Evidence from a small settlement in Tuscany suggests that even where people have face-to-face contact across a range of social contexts, the allocation of prestige and of leadershtp roles in voluntary associations may be made with relatively impersonal criteria. This is not what Wirth’s argument, as modified by Dewey, would lead one to expect.

R B S U M ~ Les rksultats des recherches faites sur une petite agglomeration en Toscane montrent que, mCme la oh les gens prennent personncllement contact dans des divers domaines sodaux, la repartition du prestige et des r6les dominants dans des cerdes libres peut se produire malgrt des crithres relativement impcrsonnels.

On n’attendrait pas ces resultats d’aprb les arguments de Wirth ou d‘aprb l e u modification par Dewey.

Z U S A M M E N P A S S U N G

Die Forschungsergebnisse aus einer klJnen Siedlung in dcz Toscana

258 Robert W d zeigen, da13 selbst dort, wo die Leute personlichen Kontakt uber ver- schiedene sozialc Bereiche hinweg haben, die Verteilung von Prestige und Fuhrungsrollen in freiwilligen Vereinigungen trotzdem nach relativ unpersonlichen Kriterien crfolgen kann. Dieses Ergebnis wiirde man nach Wirths A u s f i i h g e n oder deren Modifikation durch Dewey nicht marten.

Journal of ma1 cooperation

Vol. III, Nr. 2, 1975 Partial Contents (Semi-annual)

A. GTENES Decision Making in Hungarian Cooperatives from sociological Point of View

D. SRIVASTAVA and C. B. SINGH Disparities in Cooperative Credit in India

Y. LEVI Methodological Fnmcwork for the Uassification of Rural Cooperatives in Israel

C. STROPPA and M. TAGLIAPERRI The Cooperative Development and Problems of Social Participation in Light of a Recent Case Study

C1.R.C.O.M. INTERNATIONAL REPEARCH CENTRE ON RURAL COOPERATIVE

COliMVNmEs

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