Adaptive Strategies of Faction Peasants in an Intermediate Culture

FAIN: FB-13102-77

Murl O. Dirksen
Lee University (Cleveland, TN 37311-4475)

An ethnographic study, with empirical components, of Southern rural factory workers, who characterize an intermediate culture. The problem of the rural factory employee lies in meshing his traditionally level of familism and specificity sand low level of abstraction in social networks with the culture of the factory which demands a universalistic and individualistic orientation. Despite the difficulty of this task, the factory peasants attempt to structure the work place into a meaningful milieu by striving to make the economic and residential spheres socially and cognitively consistent through the formation of an intermediate culture.