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Abstract
Agriculture in the United States has undergone dramatic changes throughout the twentieth century, from a traditional non-mechanized lifeway to a modern industrial business. While many researchers, farmers, and the general public assume the shift was an inevitable process of increasing economic efficiency, this research applies a combination of ethnoecology, ideology, and rationalization theory to investigate perceptual transformation as a concomitant of agricultural modernization. Contemporary agriculture in the Missouri Ozarks includes traditional and modern elements and provides a representative case study to examine the relationship between farmers perceptions and practices and the socioeconomic variables that explain resistance to agricultural modernization. The technocratic rationalization process inherent in modernization is explored in a Missouri farming region, the Ozark Mineral Area (OMA). The perceptions of just over 50 OMA farmers were assessed through two years of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, surveys, and formal ethnoecological interviews. Agricultural practices were documented through participant observation, crop and technology inventories, and participatory field plots. Technocratic rationalization in the study area is examined through the aforementioned methods and extensive historical research and agricultural media content analysis. Ethnicity and religion emerge as explanatory variables for resistance to modernization and retention of traditional practices. This research elucidates the developed roots of the agricultural development paradigm and its effects on farmers perceptions and practices. It puts forth suggestions for future agricultural policy and research. Index Words: Agrarianism, Agricultural Anthropology, Agriculture, Agroecology, Anthropology, Ethnicity, Dependence, Ethnoecology, Farming, Historical Ecology, Ideology, Modernization, Ozarks, Perception, Rationalization, Religion, Resistance, Social Movements, Technocratic Rationalization, United States of America