On Dec 11 at 9:00 AM ET via Zoom, The Center for Governance and Markets will host Jovana Diković for a book talk on rural development, peasant agency, and the limits of state-led planning, drawing on her new book The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-Socialist Rural Development in Serbia.
The Laissez-Faire Peasant challenges the idea that rural residents are passive recipients of state development schemes, or that planning is the only path to prosperity. Instead, it shows that peasants actively shape their own wellbeing through autonomy, flexible cooperation, and spontaneous, locally driven practices.
About the Author
Dr. Jovana Diković is a rural and economic anthropologist whose work examines property, economic life, and social transformation in the rural Balkans. Her research focuses on how local virtues, private ownership, and everyday economic practices shape national economies and agricultural policies, as well as on endogenous rural development in Serbia.
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Download book here