STILL GOING - RECENT DEBATES ON THE GOLDSCHMIDT HYPOTHESIS

The literature on the Goldschmidt (1978a) hypothesis has passed throug h distinct stages. This article is a commentary on the present status of the literature and particularly on a recent article by Barnes and B levins (1992). Our arguments draw in large part from our previous work . Researchers in the 1970s and early 1980s were concerned mainly with replicating Goldschmidt's work. However, these studies had a number of methodological and conceptual limitations that limited closure on the debate. A new generation of research from the mid-1980s onward was pr emised upon addressing the limitations, including the need to incorpor ate indicators of nonfarm economic structure, to take spatial or geogr aphic features into account, and to adequately conceptualize farm stru cture. Barnes and Blevins (1992) disregard these inroads, evident in t hat their article repeats earlier arguments, offers solutions to probl ems addressed a decade earlier, and is vulnerable to its own methodolo gical problems. To move inquiry forward, new directions for studies co ncerned with the broader issues raised by Goldschmidt are suggested.