Gusakov T.Yu. Rural informal economy of the Crimean village Novoalekseevka // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 107-129.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-107-129
Annotation
The article considers the situation in the Crimean village as a result of the dynamic development of informal economy in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author tries to adapt the existing classifications of informal economy to the specific features of rural Crimea, in which informal relations are primarily determined by the exogenous forces such as the return of deported peoples, the collapse of the collective farms system and peculiarities of the Ukrainian state building. The Crimean countryside became a hostage of the social-economic transformations of the post-Soviet period, and found the only way to adapt and survive under the “wild capitalism” in the refusal to follow the rules of ineffective formal institutions and in replacing them with informal ones.
“Self-reliance” became the main slogan of the Crimean village in the ‘dashing 1990s’. Ethnic, ideological and intercultural disagreements and a lack of trust determined a new model of coexistence of rural residents — a commonalty (an analogue of the pre-revolutionary rural community) constituted by a network of informal ties. Combinations of various mental features determine specific types of informal economy such as a traditional shift to trade and agriculture due to the available resource base. Transformations of the institutional environment and social-economic stabilization in the 2000s contributed to the reduction of informal sector in the rural economy of the Crimea.
Keywords
Crimea, countryside, informal economy, shadow economy, agriculture, peasantization, commonalty
About the author
Gusakov Timur Yu., Junior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Averkieva K.V. Symbiosis of agriculture and forestry on the early-developed periphery of the Non-Black Earth Region: The case of the Tarnogsky district of the Vologda Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 86-106.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-86-106
Annotation
The article considers the social-economic structure of the Tarnogsky district of the Vologda Region, which has a peripheral position in both European Russia and the region. Its specific features such as the low rate of population decline and the growth of the local economy that is not high compared to other Non-Black Earth regions do not correspond to the centre-periphery logic of the well-developed space adopted in social and economic sciences. There is a highly developed timber industry including manufacture of a wide range of complex products; eleven agricultural enterprises and creamery that increase production annually, which is a rarity in the peripheral Non-Black Earth region. Such success of the Tarnogsky district is determined by both reasonable regional policies in forestry and agriculture and by personal qualities of the residents, i.e. the social capital. The author argues that the long-term territorial isolation combined with a long history of economic development played an important role in the current situation. Perhaps, the development of stable and close social ties was influenced by the ‘cluster’ (or “nesting”) type of rural settlement, in which “bushes” of 10-15 villages are located in walking distance from each other and separated by forest areas.
Keywords
rural area, periphery, early-developed territory, agriculture, forestry, social capital
About the author
Averkieva Kseniya V., PhD (Geography), Senior Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119017, Staromonetny Per., 29.
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Russia, Poland, and China: Models of post-socialist rural development. Round table // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 120-151.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-120-151
Annotation
This article is a transcript of the round table at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on March 27, which focused on the comparative analysis of the strategic directions of post-socialist rural development in the People’s Republic of China, the Polish People’s Republic and the Russian Federation. Professor Roman Kisiel made a presentation on the problems of Polish rural economy; professor Yan Hairong highlighted the dialectics of contradictions between collective and private farming in China. To a certain extent the Russian scientists L.D. Boni, V.V. Babashkin, and A.V. Gordon became the co-presenters of the Polish and Chinese colleagues when discussing such problems of rural development as the interaction of large and small-scale agrarian production, capitalist, family and collective forms of agriculture, economy and ecology, the city and village, and especially the national agrarian policies regulating all the above. In many ways, China and Poland turned out to be the poles of political and social-cultural agrarian transformations, which determine possible variations of regional models of rural-urban development in Russia. The round table discussion can be useful not only for academic scientists, but also for practitioners involved in developing state and municipal agrarian policies that are to take into account international agrarian experience.
Keywords
peasantry, land ownership, agrarian reforms, rural development, comparative studies, China, Poland, Russia
About the authors
Babashkin Vladimir V., Professor, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prospect Vernadskogo, 82.
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Boni Ludmila D., DSc (Economics), Chief Researcher, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117997, Nakhimovsky Av., 32.
Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, INION of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Kisiel Roman, Professor of Economic Science, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; 82, Prosp. Vernadskogo, Moscow, 119571, Russia
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Pugacheva Marina G., Senior Researcher, Centre for Fundamental Sociology Higher School of Economics, Deputy Editor Russian Sociological Review, Staraya Basmannaya str., 21/4, Room A205, Moscow, Russian Federation 105066.
Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Hairong Yan, Professor, Hong Kong, Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon,
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Kisiel R., Marks-Bielska R. Transformations of the Polish agriculture // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 108-119.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-108-119
Annotation
Agriculture has always been an extremely important branch of the Polish economy as a stabilizer of economic fluctuations, a source of basic consumer goods and raw materials for other branches of economy in the periods of instability, a guarantee of self-sufficiency and food security of the country, a protector of natural environment, a source of labor and an employer, and finally a significant factor of national identity and culture. Agricultural production occupies almost half of the Polish territory, and has always determined the main ways of using land and influencing natural environment and landscape. At the same time, for many years the Polish agriculture has been under political, economic, and environmental pressure that determined its numerous transformations. The article considers key changes of rural Poland under the economic transformations focusing on the ownership system at the start of political and economic reforms. The author assesses the role of Polish agriculture and its production potential within the national economy paying particular attention to the European Union budgetary support. Thus, the author aims to analyze all these changes on the basis of statistical data of the Main Statistical Office and Agrarian Property Agency focusing on the transformations of rural areas of former state farms.
Keywords
polish farm, economic transformation in Poland, agricultural policy in Poland, European Union
About the authors
Kisiel Roman, Professor of Economic Science at University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. Faculty of Economic Science, Department of Economic and Regional Policy. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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Marks-Bielska Renata, Professor of Economic Science at University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. Faculty of Economic Science, Department of Economic and Regional Policy. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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Zhidkevich N. Today’s migrant workers in the north and south of European Russia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 97-107.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-97-107
Annotation
The article considers the phenomenon of temporary labor migration, i.e. the so-called ‘contemporary migrant/seasonal work’. The author focuses on its regional features determined by economic, social-cultural and demographic situation in the migrant workers’ hometowns and villages. There is a clear differentiation in such characteristics as the scale of migrant work, women’s seasonal positions, dominant motives of such work and its key specialties, migrant workers’ status in the local community, etc., especially in the northern and southern parts of European Russia. The share of migrant workers in local communities is much higher in the ‘south’ than in the ‘north’ for the density of population in the ‘south’ is higher. In the ‘south’, both men and women are engaged in migrant work while in the ‘north’ women among the migrant workers are rare. The ‘north’ with its forests is known for migrant carpenters that build houses, bathhouses and other buildings for wealthy city dwellers (there are almost no carpenters in the ‘south’). The ‘southern’ migrant workers can be divided into two groups —general workers and skilled workers engaged in oil and gas industries, so labor competition is fierce in the ‘south’; moreover there is a big demand for ‘northern’ carpenters’ unique skills. Thus, ‘southern’ migrant workers are motivated by push-factors, while the ‘northern’—by the attraction-factors. The scale of migrant work and its key specialties determine the differences in migrant workers’ positions in local communities: for instance, carpenters of the ‘north’ mainly have a high social status; ‘southern’ migrant general workers usually have a low status, while the skilled ones—a high status.
Keywords
migrant work, (temporary) labor migration, regional differences, the north and south of European Russia, Russian periphery, employment strategies
About the author
Zhidkevich Natalia, Analyst, Project-Training Laboratory of Municipal Government, National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation.
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Ovchintseva L.A. Rural cooperatives: Same goals, new problems // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P. 121-141.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-121-141
Annotation
The article considers the development of farmer cooperatives for processing and marketing of agricultural products. The article is based on the federal and regional statistical data and on the expert interviews conducted by the author with the heads of farms and cooperatives, managers of regional and municipal agribusiness, specialists of auditing unions, cooperation development funds, cooperative unions and other institutions supporting the development of соoperation. The survey was conducted in 2016 in four regions of the Russian Federation—Lipetsk, Penza, Moscow and Kaluga, mainly among cooperatives processing fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products. The situation in the Lipetsk Region is particularly interesting due to the threelevel system of cooperation support: by rural settlements, by districts and by the regional government. The author also describes the influence of district agencies of the Pensa Region on small business. The forms and methods of cooperation support by the regional agroindustrial complex are described on the basis of the author’s research data, which allowed to identify the key difficulties of the farmers that decided to create cooperatives. The article presents the most illustrative quotes from the interviews confirming the lack of access to financial resources, the variability of the state policy considering farmer cooperatives, the imperfection of legal regulation of cooperation, the administrative pressure on cooperatives and small and medium business, the insufficient development of distribution networks and rural infrastructure, and some subjective factors.
Keywords
rural cooperation, factors of cooperatives’ development, cooperatives in the Russian regions, cooperative system in Lipetsk, Penza Agency for the development of cooperation, Kaluga cooperatives, cooperatives in the Moscow Region
About the author
Ovchintseva Lyubov A., PhD (Economics), Senior Researcher, Department of Sustainable Rural Development and Rural Cooperation, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics. 21–1, Bolshoi Kharitonievski per., Moscow, 105064, Russia.
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Vinogradsky V.G. Forms of informality: Invisible economy of the peasant house // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P. 101-120.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-101-120
Annotation
The article presents author’s interpretation of a number of interviews with the head of the household in the Kuban village, the mother of three children, Lyubov Kuranovskaya, who, while answering the interviewer’s questions, created a detailed picture of peasant everyday life, of the rural formal and informal economy. Fifteen years ago, the journal “Sociological Studies” published the first data of this project, and the articles were not typical for such a scientific edition. In the special foreword, the Editorial Board mentioned that the journal usually did not publish such research documents (reports, tables, interviews, etc.); however, an exception was made for the text was of a great value in terms of its content, and it was an example of qualitative interviewing that could be further analyzed. Thus, the respondent ‘received a voice’ and told the readers about her life without any analytical explanations and generalizations. Lyuba Kuranovskaya still lives in the Kuban stanitsa, though much has changed in fifteen years. The author follows the publishing format of 2002 to show Lyubov Ivanovna’s present life practices, and focuses on those aspects of her family economy that are usually named ‘informal’, ‘expolar’, ‘shadow’ or ‘invisible’. Lyuba talks about her life sincerely, trustingly, and picturesquely. The words speak for themselves — the narrator tries to discursively support her own life world so that to move confidently into the future. The text presents fragments of narratives recorded in 2000 and 2012 (previously not published) together with short comments aimed to tie up current and previous life experiences of Lyubov Ivanovna Kuranovskaya.
Keywords
in-depth interview, types of informality, family economy, peasant life practices, peasant worlds, rural sociology, discourse of rural everyday life
About the author
Vinogradsky Valery G., DSc (Philosophy), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Russia.
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Regional practices of business and the authorities interaction (the Russian North-West case)
Mar 30 2017Bozhkov O.B., Ignatova S.N. Regional practices of business and the authorities interaction (the Russian North-West case) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 115-130.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-115-130
Annotation
The coordination of interests, cooperation and confrontation between the local authorities and business within the rural society play an important role in the development of rural Russia. The authors believe that the function of creating the rural business climate belongs to the regional authorities, while the local self-government lacks the levers of interaction with entrepreneurs. The success of entrepreneurial activities in agriculture is determined both by the strategy of local (and regional) leaders in the industry, and by human and social capital of rural enterprises’ managers. There is an obvious “patrimonial” model of management, in which the head of the district develops an internal policy based on one’s own goals and objectives with an eye on the regional requirements. This policy either encourages the development of agriculture at the local level, or only supports its preservation without any prospects for growth. Such conclusions are based on the results of long-term studies in the peripheral agricultural areas of non-Black-Earth regions of the Russian Federation. Despite the territorial proximity and similarity of geography and climate, each area under study has its own strategy for the development of agricultural business. Thus, the most interesting and various practices can be observed at the district level due to the specific conditions for the local agricultural enterprises. The authors confirmed their initial assumption that it is necessary to conduct a typological analysis of territories and to form clusters of similar (in many ways) areas to develop a single model of rural development for the Russian Federation.
Keywords
ocal authorities, business environment, agricultural production, practices of interaction
About the authors
Bozhkov Oleg B., Senior Researcher, Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Research Center “Biographical Foundation”. 190005, Saint Petersburg, 7 Krasnoarmeiskay St., 25/14.
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Ignatova Svetlana N., Researcher, Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 190005, St. Petersburg, 7 Krasnoarmeiskay st., 25/14.
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Mapping multistructural rural economy: Suburban and peripheral areas of the Tyumen Region
Mar 30 2017Sheludkov A.V., Rasskazov S.V. Mapping multistructural rural economy: Suburban and peripheral areas of the Tyumen Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 102-114.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-102-114
Annotation
The article considers the geographical prerequisites for the development of multistructural rural economy. The authors use departmental statistics and the data of the Federal State Statistics Service to show the differences of social-economic landscapes in remote and close to centers rural areas. Such differences determine the domination of particular economic agents, and the specialization of rural areas by forms and sectors of agriculture. For instance, commodity production, agribusiness and private farms concentrate around the cities; here a suburban area of agriculture is developing supported by the pendulum migration; large enterprises are fully integrated in the formal market and win the competition for land resources, especially in grain production, while the farmers can benefit from the development of service industries or narrow economic niches. In the peripheral areas of the southeast, there are smallholdings, peasant farms and cooperatives. People use household plots and free land to develop dairy and meat husbandry, to grow potatoes and vegetables, and to produce honey. The owners of large household plots can be considered potential farmers, but due to the high institutional barriers they retain a semi-legal status. In general, settlements of the sub-region teeter on the edge of formal (cooperatives and peasant farms) and informal (smallholdings, secondhand dealers, etc.) economies. Large-scale enterprises can also work here, but usually they act as external players exploiting resources of the periphery and not taking care of local communities. However, the situation is not static, its vectors of development include economic and social risks associated with the gradual displacement of small and medium agricultural producers by large enterprises, and with the dependence of peripheral farms on the intermediary structures. At the same time, the multistructural economy creates new opportunities such as economic specialization of villages and diversification of rural economy. This research was conducted as a part of the complex research project of the Council of municipalities of the Tyumen region.
Keywords
multi-structural economy, rural economy, rural settlements, rural municipalities, social-economic polarization, center-periphery structure
About the authors
Sheludkov Alexander V., Analyst, Association “Council of Municipalities of the Tyumen Region”, post-graduate student of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Staromonetniy per., 29. Moscow, Russia 119017.
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Rasskasov Sergei V. , PhD (Geography), Associate Professor, Department of Modern History, Tyumen State University. 6 Volodarskogo St. 625003 Tyumen, Russia.
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Breslavsky A.S. “Suburban Revolution”: The regional case (Ulan-Ude) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №1. pp. 90-101.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-1-90-101
Annotation
The author considers the processes of suburban growth in major Russian cities that becomes more and more visible, and at the same time has much in common with the processes of development of other large cities in post-socialist countries. The driving forces of the so-called “post-socialist suburban revolution” in Russia determined by the rapid growth of private housing construction on the periphery of the capital cities are similar to those typical for Eastern European countries. They are as follows: the prolonged housing crisis, restrictions on the private property and private housing construction in the Soviet period, degradation of the social infrastructure in central districts of the cities in the 1990s, liberalization of distribution and developing of urban and suburban areas, in-migration from rural areas — all these factors have a significant impact on the growth of cities with a million-plus population as well as on smaller regional capitals. The growth and development of the suburban zone of Ulan-Ude — the capital of the Republic of Buryatia — quite fit into this “post-socialist context” though with important regional features related to local housing traditions, level of income, character of rural-urban migration, etc. The key directions of growth of the inner and outer suburbs of Ulan-Ude are as follows: wooden low-rise housing construction, transformation of dachas into places of year-round accommodation, construction of cottages and townhouses, high-rise housing construction, development and reconstruction of suburban villages. The suburban area of Ulan-Ude has mono-functional character (residential areas) for the industrial and commercial construction and social and public infrastructure are still poorly developed, which determines the rural-urban look of the suburban micro-districts.
Keywords
suburbs, urbanization, suburbanization, Ulan-Ude, segments of housing development, social geography
About the author
Breslavsky Anatoly S., Research Fellow, PhD (History), Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. Address: 6, Sakhyanovoi St., Ulan-Ude, 670047, Russian Federation.
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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, June, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)..
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar, Sherpa Romeo , AGRIS
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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