2 Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (London: Michael Joseph, 1994), 289.
3 See Ernst Langthaler, “Landwirtschaft vor und in der Globalisierung,” in Globalgeschichte 1800-2010, eds. Reinhard Sieder and Ernst Langthaler (Vienna: Böhlau, 2010), 135-69.
4 See Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, The New Peasantries: Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability in an Era of Empire and Globalization (London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2008); idem, “The Peasantries of the Twenty-First Century: the Commoditisation Debate Revisited,” in Journal of Peasant Studies 37, no. 1 (2010): 1-30.
5 See Eric Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966), 2-3.
6 See Henry Bernstein, Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change (Halifax and Sterling, VA: Fernwood and Kumarian, 2010).
7 Ernst Hanisch, Der lange Schatten des Staates. Österreichische Gesellschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1994), 100. However, other passages of the book argue more ambivalently (ibid., 61): “Es war weniger der Typus ‘ Bauer,’der verschwand – auch wenn er sich mehr in Richtung ‘Farmer’ und ‘Nebenerwerbsbauer’ entwickelte –, es war die ländliche Unterschicht, Knecht und Dirn, die von den anderen Sektoren aufgesogen wurde.” On agricultural development in twentieth century Austria in general see Ernst Bruckmüller et al., Geschichte der österreichischen Land-und Forstwirtschaft im 20. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002-03).
8 See Karl Kautsky, The Agrarian Question (Winchester, MA: Zwan Publications, 1988 [1899]).
9 See Bernstein, Agrarian Change, 104-12.
10 See Österreichisches Statistisches Zentralamt (ÖSTAT), ed., Republik Österreich 1945-1995 (Vienna: Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, 1995), 176.
11 See Alf Lüdtke, ed., The History of Everyday Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
12 The phrase “get big or get out” was coined by the US-American Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson in the 1950s. One of his successors in the 1970s, Earl Butz, proclaimed in a similar way: “adopt or die.” See Paul Roberts, The End of Food: The Coming Crisis of the World Food Industry (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), 120. On the synonymous German dictum Wachsen oder Weichen see Hermann Priebe, Die subventionierte Unvernunft: Landwirtschaft und Naturhaushalt (Berlin: Siedler, 1985), 86.
13 See John S. Caldwell, “Farming Systems,” in Encyclopedia of Agricultural Science, vol. 2, eds. Charles J. Arntzen and Ellen M. Ritter (San Diego: Academic Press, 1994), 129-38.
14 See Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, The Virtual Farmer: Past, Present and Future of the Dutch Peasantry (Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2003), 101-41.
15 See Geoff A. Wilson, Multifunctional Agriculture: A Transition Theory Perspective (Wallingford and Cambridge, MA: CABI publishing, 2007), 271-320.
16 See Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv (NÖLA), inventories Bezirksbauernkammer Mank and Mödling, boxes Hof-und Betriebskarten. The farm file surveys 1944/46, 1952, 1959/69, 1970/71 and 1982/83 of ten communes in the two regions were fed into an Access database (subsequently Farming Styles Database) from which 3,561 datasets of farming units were exported to be analysed with XLSTAT.
17 Twenty-seven narrative interviews with former, current and designated owners of family farms of both sexes were conducted in the regions of Mank and Mödling during winter 2010/11. The quotations refer to the transcriptions of the digital recordings which were analysed with Atlas. ti.
18 See Brigitte Le Roux and Henry Rouhanet, Geometric Data Analysis: From Correspondence Analysis to Structured Data Analysis (New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004).
19 See Ralf Bohnsack, Iris Nentwig-Gesemann und Arnd-Michael Nohl, eds., Die dokumentarische Methode und ihre Forschungspraxis: Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007).
20 On the natural and transport conditions as well as land and livestock use in the two regions see Erik Arnberger, ed., Atlas von Niederösterreich (und Wien) (Vienna: Freytag-Berndt und Artaria, 1951-58), fol. 12 (relief), 14-21 (climate and phenology), 22-23 (soil types), 66-94 (agriculture and forestry), 106-110 (railways and streets).
21 On the definition of “external” and “internal expansion” (innere and äußere Aufstockung ) see Hansueli Herrmann, Bauern im Wandel: Agrarischer Strukturwandel, bäuerliches Verhalten und bewusstseinsmässige Verarbeitung am Beispiel einer Agglomerationsgemeinde (Küssnacht ZH) 1945-1980 (Zurich: Chronos, 1990), 59-60. Accordingly, “internal expansion” means more intensive uses of land and livestock; “external expansion” means farm enlargement. Additionally, we have also included the machinery in this definition.
22 See Robert Eastwood, Michael Lipton and Andrew Newell, “Farm Size,” in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, vol. 4, eds. Prabhu Pingali and Robert Evenson (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2010), 3323-97; Prabhu Pingali, “Agricultural Mechanization,” in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, vol. 3, eds. Robert Evenson and idem (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), 2779-2805.
23 See Brian Ilbery and Ian Bowler, “From agricultural productivism to post-productivism,” in The Geography of Rural Change, ed. Brian Ilbery (London: Longman, 1998), 57-84.
24 See van der Ploeg, Virtual Farmer, 55-57.
25 On the debate on “integration” as a couterpart of “industrialization” in the 1970s see Hans Bach, Landbau und Umwelt: Industrialisierung der Agrarwirtschaft oder integrierter Landbau, Schriftenreihe des Institutes für Raumordnung und Umweltgestaltung 6 (Linz: Trauner, 1978).
26 See van der Ploeg, Virtual Farmer, 55-57.
27 On the type of the “gentleman farmer” (Herrenbauer) see Norbert Ortmayr, “Ländliches Gesinde in Oberösterreich 1918-1938,” in Familienstruktur und Arbeitsorganisation in ländlichen Gesellschaften, eds. Josef Ehmer and Michael Mitterauer (Vienna: Böhlau, 1986), 325 – 416; Karl Kaser and Karl Stocker, Bäuerliches Leben in der Oststeiermark seit 1848, vol. 2: Die verspätete Revolution (Vienna: Böhlau, 1988), 50-57.
28 See Ernst Langthaler, “Agrarsysteme ohne Akteure? Sozialökonomische und sozialökologische Modelle in der Agrargeschichte,” in Grüne Revolutionen: Agrarsysteme und Umwelt im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Andreas Dix and Ernst Langthaler, Jahrbuch für Geschichte des ländlichen Raumes 3 (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2006), 216-38.
29 See Bernd Andreae, Betriebsformen in der Landwirtschaft (Stuttgart: Ulmer, 1964), 16-31.
30 See van der Ploeg, Virtual Farmer, 55 – 57.
31 On the “viable farm” (entwicklungsfähiger Betrieb ) as an ideal of Austrian agrarian structural policy in the 1960s and 1970s see Melanie Kröger, Die Modernisierung der Landwirtschaft: Eine vergleichende Untersuchung der Agrarpolitik Deutschlands und Österreichs nach 1945 (Berlin: Logos, 2006), 301-311.
32 Criteria of selection were, first, the continuity of farming from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s and, second, the agrosystemic diversity of the cases.
33 The actual name was replaced by a pseudonym.
34 Interview with E. D. on 27 January 2011, transcription, 75.
35 Interview with M. H. on 15 February 2011, transcription, 27.
36 Interview with E. D. on 27 January 2011, transcription, 37.
37 See Pierre Bourdieu, Wie die Kultur zum Bauern kommt: Über Bildung, Schule und Politik (Hamburg: Junius, 2001), 16.
38 Interview with E. D. on 27 January 2011, transcription, 12.
39 Interview with E. D. on 27 January 2011, transcription, 93.
40 Interview with E. D. on 27 January 2011, transcription, 40.
41 The actual name was replaced by a pseudonym.
42 Interview with F. G. on 14 December 2011, transcription, 13.
43 Interview with F. G. jr. on 14 December 2011, transcription, 13.
44 Interview with F. G. on 14 December 2011, transcription, 21.
45 See James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
46 See Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke, eds., Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
47 See van der Ploeg, New Peasantries, 152-57.
48 On the distinction between (static) “order” and (dynamic) “ordering” see John Law, Organizing Modernity (Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994).
49 In our research project eight cases of family farming systems in total have been reconstructed on the basis of narrative interviews and additional sources.
50 See Ralf Bohnsack, “Orientierungsmuster,” in Hauptbegriffe Qualitativer Sozialforschung: Ein Wörterbuch, eds. Ralf Bohnsack, Winfried Marotzki and Michael Meuser (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2003), 132-33.
51 On the role of rural women as providers of flexible laborforce see Ingrid Bauer, “Zwischen Goldhaube und Telehaus: Modernisierung der Geschlechterverhältnisse im ländlichen Raum,” in Salzburg: Zwischen Globalisierung und Goldhaube, eds. Ernst Hanisch and Robert Kriechbaumer (Vienna: Böhlau, 1997), 210-39.
52 As a case study emphasizing the “decline of the peasant economy” see Christa Müller, Von der lokalen Ökonomie zum globalisierten Dorf: Bäuerliche Überlebensstrategien zwischen Weltmarktintegration und Regionalisierung (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1998), 88-139; a more differentiated account is provided by Thomas Fliege, Bauernfamilien zwischen Tradition und Moderne: Eine Ethnographie bäuerlicher Lebensstile (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1998).
53 See Kröger, Modernisierung, 395-418.