This work discusses some aspects of the conceptual debate surrounding the notions of peasantry and peasant society and the social transformations affecting the rural world, emphasizing the problem of the relation between peasants and the State. The analysis highlights a significant example of this relation, foreign colonization, resulting in public policies designed to stimulate the occupation of empty lands, which began in the south of Brazil in 1824. The case allows us to observe the role of the State in controlling a process of populating the land with European immigrants and the consequent formation of a type of ethnic peasantry distinct from other Brazilian rural lifeworlds.
Peasantry; State; Public Policies; Foreign Colonization; Identity