Öppna och slutna rum - enskiftet och de utsattas geografi: Husmän, bönder och gods på den skånska landsbygden under 1800-talets första hälft

The aim of the thesis is to study the change in the Scanian rural society and landscape during the time of the radical enclosure reform "Enskifte" (Sw.) in the early 19th century and the decades therafter up until c 1850. Seven parishes on the southern plain of the province of Scania are studied in more detail, while the province itself is the study area in two of the nine chapters. The theoretical basis of open and closed spaces is inspired by the British debate on open and closed parishes. Among other things the results confirm the view that the inititives for the enclosure reform was more spread among the small and medium scale farmers than earlier research has stated. The local geography of population, spread of enclosures, new possibilities and social restructuring differed between peasant and estate parishes, and the main conclusion is that the tradtional picture of change should be qualified: changes in these phenomena took place in the open, peasant dominated parishes, rathar than in the closed spaces on the estates.