Authors

Joanna Rozmus¹;  ¹ University of Vienna/University of Novi Sad, Austria

Discussion

This paper presents the findings of my dissertation, which examines how post-socialist rural societies respond and adapt to profound systemic changes following the collapse of socialism. Using the example of the village of Paczółtowice in Lesser Poland, where a former state-owned agricultural enterprise was transformed into a golf resort in the 1990s, the study illustrates how global transformation processes manifest at the local level. The research assumes that post-socialist rural communities possessed considerable human capital and employed diverse adaptive strategies to mitigate economic and social stagnation. I argue that phenomena such as the decline of agricultural activity, the re-purposing of rural land, rural gentrification, and the emergence of “new ruralities” are not merely consequences of the transition to a market economy and democracy, but integral components of broader processes of global restructuring. Drawing on a microhistorical case study based on oral history interviews, archival research, and participant observation, I analyse the interactions between global economic forces and local social dynamics. Theoretically, my analysis is grounded in Zygmunt Bauman’s concepts of globalisation and inequality, which provide a framework for exploring the interplay of continuity and change, traditional and emerging power structures, and growing social differentiation in the post-socialist countryside. The aim of the paper is to present the key research findings and to advance an understanding of transition as an ambivalent, spatially situated, and globally entangled process, contributing to both transition studies and rural studies.