UB School of Economics researchers Enric Tello and Ricard Soto awarded prize for best ‘Journal of Agrarian Change’ article

The UB School of Economics researchers Enric Tello and Ricard Soto have been awarded the Bernstein & Byres Prize for the best article published in the Journal of Agrarian Change in 2018 for “From feudal colonization to agrarian capitalism in Mallorca: Peasant endurance under the rise and fall of large estates (1229–1900)”. Enric Tello and Ricard Soto co-authored the article with Gabriel Jover (Universitat de Girona), Ivan Murray (Universitat de les Illes Balears) and Onofre Fullana (Universitat de les Illes Balears).

The article studies how the colonisation of Mallorca gave rise to a late‐feudal agrarian society that evolved towards capitalism based on large estates owned by noblemen who hired large numbers of wage labourers. Afterwards, Mallorca followed a latifundist transition towards agrarian capitalism. The agrarian crisis at the end of the 19th century bankrupted the Mallorcan nobility. This expanded the intensive cropping, giving rise to a new “peasantization”. Mallorcan peasants had survived and created complex agroecological landscapes endowed with a rich biocultural heritage.

---