During the course of my ethnographic fieldwork in northwest Poland, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. W. (and Basia the pregnant horse who) happens to be the last gospodarsz (or self-sufficient small-scale farmer) who still performs free services for the families who gave away their inventories and land back to the Communist government in [...]
Post-Socialism
Potato Thieves
This is a field which prior to 1989 was a 100+ hectare PGR (a state farm). These PGRs had their workers living on the state property. After 1989, the PGRs became privatised but the PGR workers stayed on the property (some purchased their PGR homes, while others are still paying “rent” to the government Agencja [...]