What, then, is special about the context of agriculture?: That
business relations on the family farm are not separate from family relations, unpaid work is not
separate from paid work, intimate relations are not separate from instrumental relations? Also, the
necessary co-operation between husband and wife in making the farm survive and the small rural
communities in which agricultural production takes place are important aspects of the context. These
contextual aspects are not just characteristics of the traditional/pre-modern period. They may be seen
as having a lot in common with the post-modern blurring of boundaries, and they also become
interesting against the backdrop of the new attempts at reuniting what modernity has split apart and
the renewed interest in collectivities in identity construction. As I have pointed out, it is feasible to
study agriculture as contemporary without assuming things will change in a modernist (linear,
evolutionary) direction. This, however, opens up for new interpretations.