Post-socialist estates and the concept of rurality : From policy to misery

• 1989 was a turning point within the socio-economic development in the former Eastern bloc, initiating a system transformation that affected the society at large. It also contributed to the crystallization of certain cultural landscapes, hitherto largely illegible due to the inhibition of spatial processes encountered during Communism. In Poland, after a quarter-century of free market economy, the focus on social problems began to expand to the spatial realm as well. It became apparent that the progressive social polarization that followed was most prominent in environments striated by a particular landscape type – the former State Agricultural Farm (PGR). Its dysfunctional character, noticeable in a wide array of dimensions (unemployment, poverty, social anomies, poor health, claiming attitudes, substandard housing, ghettoization) has since posed serious challenges for planners and policy-makers. Typically, estates stricken by these kinds of aggregated predicaments are associated with “urban areas” along with specific theoretical frameworks and their implications for consecutive development strategies. In that light, considering PGRs “the epitome of rurality” subject to ideas informing the direction of contemporary “rural development” prompts a different way of looking at the problem. In this paper, we investigate the concept of rurality in the discursive tenor of various development programs and contrast it with richly contextualized empirical examples. Our findings suggest that not only is the concept of rurality becoming increasingly difficult to work with on an applicative level, but – in certain environments – it may also be conducive to the reproduction of human suffering.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialpsykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Psychology (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Idé- och lärdomshistoria (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- History of Ideas (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

social deprivation

rurality

State Agricultural Farms

rural development

policy

discourse analysis

Poland

Human Geography

Kulturgeografi

Sociology

Sociologi

social deprivation

rurality

State Agricultural Farms

rural development

policy

discourse analysis

Poland

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