Diković, J.;
(2025)
The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-socialist rural development in Serbia.
[Book].
UCL Press: London.
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Abstract
In rural development studies there are two mainstream assumptions. One holds that peasants are the victims of state rural development schemes, the other that only planning can ensure change and prosperity in rural regions. It is rarely considered that peasants are architects of their own and local wellbeing – notions which are often in opposition to state plans for agriculture. The Laissez-Faire Peasant explores how rural development emerges on the ground. The concept involves the manifestation of peasant worldviews in which autonomy in decision-making, freedom of action, spontaneity, and flexibility in everyday cooperation play a dominant role. A role in which individual and local values generate a self-regulating system that manages a range of economic, social, and political relationships. The book examines manifestations of peasant autonomy, both in response to and independent of state rural development policies through a multi-sited ethnography of three Serbian villages. It is shown how these factors impede state programs for rural development while enabling the spontaneous flourishing of local communities. By focusing on the agency of rural residents, the book finds that peasants are resilient and competent agents who do not need government plans to thrive.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-socialist rural development in Serbia |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1-80008-763-7 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781800087637 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800087637 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Text © Author, 2025 Images © Author and copyright holders named in captions, 2025 Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This licence allows you to share and adapt the work for non-commercial use providing attribution is made to the author and publisher (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) and any changes are indicated. Attribution should include the following information: Diković, J. 2025. The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-socialist rural development in Serbia. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800087637 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ |
| Keywords: | Peasantry, rural development, post-socialist village, farming, Serbia |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10201667 |
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