Regional Mountain Conference

Collective action has historically sustained agrarian mountain livelihoods. Irrigation, livestock, hay work, sharing of knowledges and farm technologies such as tractors has been organized by communities themselves both through institutionalized forms such as farmer organisations and informal arrangements among neighbors and communities. In the last decades, however, a shift from peasant to capitalist modes of production, farm specialization, mechanization, subsidy regulations, and a devaluation of family farming has resulted in fundamental shifts in agrarian economies and rural out-migration. These demographic, economic and socio-spatial changes have challenged the sustainability of smallholders globally, and in particular, in the European Alps. Building on qualitative fieldwork on smallholders in mountain elevations above 1200 m in South Tyrol, this talk will present diverse smallholders’ perspectives on changes in collective action, and reflect on current forms of collective action in mountain agriculture. I argue that, rather than dissolving under these changes, collective action has been reworked and sometimes revitalized. If new and socially vibrant rural futures in the European Alps are to be realized, it is necessary to understand the forms, scales, and social relations of collective action and their contribution to sustainable mountain livelihoods.