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Jovana Diković, "The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-Socialist Rural Development in Serbia" (UCL Press, 2025)
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Hello everybody and welcome back to the New Books Network. I'm Jenna Pittman, a host for the Network. Today we'll be talking to Jovana Dikovic about her new book, the Laissez Faire Post Socialist Rural Development in Serbia, published by University College London Press in 2025. As an economic anthropologist, Jovana Dikovich's the Laissez Faire Present explores how rural development emerges on the ground in three Serbian villages. By focusing on the agency of rural residents, Dikovic explains why peasants are resilient and competent agents who do not need government plans to thrive. Yovana, thank you so much for being here today and joining us. Welcome to the show.
- [01:45]
C
Thank you very much, Jenna, for inviting me.
- [01:47]
B
Yeah, of course. I wonder if you could begin the episode just by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you came to write the Laissez Faire present.
- [01:56]
C
Thank you, Jonah. So I'm, as you said, I'm an economic anthropologist. I was born and raised and educated in Serbia, where I graduated from the Social Anthropology Department at the University of Belgrade. And as a graduated student, of course, without employment, I was looking for a job. And then completely by accident, I discovered that some of colleagues from the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Serbia were looking for assistance to help them in collecting the data for the Atlasov vernacular architecture. And so it happens that I was accompanying my older colleague, older ethnologist Borgia Kostanovic, from whom I really Learned a lot. And we were traveling and spending several months of very intensive fieldwork research in very distant Serbian villages. And we tried to collect as much as possible of the vernacular architecture. We also tried to collect the materials of these vernacular genies and try to understand what motivating these people to build such beautiful buildings and to preserve them. So the idea behind was that actually, even without any intention whatsoever, I started to be hooked on the work and doing fieldwork in the villages, because it was not really the result of the research, but the experience that really hooked me and kept me interested in natural areas. I think what was the most interesting part of it was that you could see that rural areas are usually misrepresented in the public discourse. We either tend to think that we know everything about villages on the one side, or on the other side we think that, or often we just romanticize villages. But my intention was that I try to grasp this complexity of the villages and very deep layeredness of social and economic organization and values and virtues, and the role of ethics that play very big, important and important role in organization of everyday life in villages. And so I was, after completing this collection of vernacular architecture materials for the Atlas of Vernacular Architecture, I decided that I will pur my doctoral degree. And then I started my doctoral degree in social anthropology at the University of Zurich. And then I met there professor who became later my supervisor, Dr. Peter Pinke. And then we discussed that I'm very interested in rural areas and that I would be very interested in understanding rural development. Just because we think that we know how rural development occurs on the ground. But actually I think think that frankly anyone really knows how that takes place. And so we agreed that that would be a fantastic topic, particularly because back then it was almost non existing information about rural areas, or if they existed, they were very scarce and they were very particularistic. So we just agreed that I go for a topic of rural development and what happened with the peasantry during this post socialist period, because we didn't have really a lot of information. And then I started to build on this idea. And in Serbia there was a very important figure, ethnologist, actually he's anthropologist, he's ethnologist, was specializing in law, anthropology, legal anthropology. And so he wrote a book that was ethnographic historic monography of village of Guy. And it happened that he was also born in that village. His name is Nikola Parkovich. So I already had at least historic framework, one of the villages that I could build on farther. And so, together with my professor, Peter Finke, we agreed that that would be a fantastic start and that would be something that we definitely should look at and then, you know, start researching the village from, from the point where Professor Parkovich stopped. So that was the idea. So I had basically a good, good, good base to continue the research. But of course my, my focus was completely different. And so the other two villages are neighboring villages to Guy, and these are Bellybreak and Malo Bhavanishta. And these are just a couple of kilometers. Villages, a couple of kilometers away from Gai. So it was somehow a logical continuation of involving two other smaller villages and observing them together and trying to understand how rural development takes place in these villages.
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B
Yeah, thank you for that. That's really fascinating. You kind of touch on the villages that you study. But I think it might be interesting for you to describe kind of what your approach is and what the study is really trying to reveal about agriculture and post socialist Serbia.
- [08:07]
C
So yes, I mean, as I already said, it is about the ideas of development. I think that I should actually mention that there is a huge knowledge gap of what happened with the Serbian villages as of 1990s. So as of 1990s until 2025, we literally didn't have any material whatsoever. There were several little research articles and little books that were explaining ethnographically the villages and the situation of a couple of Serbian villages during 60s and 70s. But after that time it was not really possible to reconstruct what happened with these villages. So my idea was just to grasp the situation in the villages today, but also to reflect on these past two decades that were sometimes that were lacking. And there are two the most important aspects why I choose villages. First of all, peasants and also agricult agriculture represent very important economic force in Serbia. And on the other hand, peasants represent very important political and symbolic force in different ideologies and in different political campaigns throughout 20 and 21st centuries. So given these multidimensional realities of peasants, I was really wondering and wanted to start the research that includes their economic and political relationship with the state, but also to discover what are the relationships they establish with each other, or the relationships that they establish through the markets, locally through the markets, through trade and different forms of cooperation. And so I started my research in Guy Malo Balanishte and Beli Brek. And this villages are comparable to an extent, but they're also different in some ways. First of all, Gai is one of the oldest villages in this area. And with a history that goes back to the beginning of 18th century, this whole area of voivodina Province used to belong to Austro Hungarian Empire. And the visual, I mean, the urbanistic appearance of the village is very Austro Hungarian, with very bright streets and very structured streets and with very designed village center, et cetera. And then it's also a very ethnically mixed village, which is also quite important, resembling the character of Austro Hungarian Empire. So we have a majority that is formed by Serbs. Then we have Czechs, we have Romanians, we have few Germans, and we have Hungarians as minority in the village. And of course, Roma population. On the other hand, other two villages, Guy the Bellibreg and Nalge Bawaniste emerged as recent settlements, relatively recent settlements. They emerged after the Second World War, and they emerged thanks to the internal migration of the population from Serb Second World War. So these people are primarily Orthodox and are primarily Serbs. So they are more homogeneous, in contrast to Guy and I think, and they are also significantly smaller. Guy, for example, today has around 3,000 people constantly living in the village, whereas Malo Bavariste and Bellibreg are smaller and have between 300 and 400 people. Nevertheless, what is very common to all these three villages is that majority of the population is dealing with agriculture, whereas only 45% does solely agriculture. The others combine agriculture with other primary occupation. And very tiny population doesn't do anything. I mean, they don't cultivate the land. They are either landless people, which are in this case is referring to Roma, or they are professionals like doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, et cetera. So they do not really deal with agriculture. And so from 2013 to 2017, I started my research, and I think overall I spent maybe a year and a half in these three villages. And actually by living with these people, by following them in their regular duties, on a regular daily basis, through the constant conversations with them, I think that I somehow could grasp how the countryside breeds and what were the values that they hold up to and what are the ideas that really shape rural development in these three villages. So that was actually my approach to study them by living with them. And this is differently known as ethnographic approach. So we usually practice living in the communities that we investigate. We try to interview as many people as possible and try to understand what are their motives, what are their habits, how they talk to each other, what are kind of values that they hold important, and how these values also impact their regular practices, everyday practices, but also routines, and also other forms of cooperation.
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B
Yeah, that's very, very fascinating. Thank you for that. I notice, you know, in this book, but also in your description of these villages, you use the term peasant. And I'm curious, and I think our listeners might be curious why the word peasant is the best term to describe citizens of rural agricultural communities in Serbia. I feel like peasant in, I don't know, in the, in the American mind is so attributed to almost like an impoverished class. But I think it's being used differently here.
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C
So.
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B
Yeah. Would you like to describe that?
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C
Sure. Thank you very much for asking me this question, because I think it's. It's very important. And I was also thinking that the term peasant might be misleading to some who are reading this book. But I really have to say that term peasant is. I am using this term as a very amic term. So people in Serbia who are dealing with agriculture, but just mind the difference, who are dealing with agriculture, they call themselves and they call their fellow villagers peasants, but the term peasant does not really refer to people who simply live in rural areas. So that is the difference. So people, or anyone who is actually dealing with who is cultivating the land would call himself or herself a peasant without any obstacles whatsoever. Even though my informants were completely aware of the fact that term peasant also keeps these negative connotations. And many people simply use this term just because it's very locally acceptable term, regardless of the gender, regardless of the scope of the land that they cultivate. So anyone who is cultivating the land would call himself or herself and their peers peasant. I will give you just very funny little episode. And actually that was maybe the breaking point when I decided that I'm going to use and stick to this term. So I was walking with my female friend and we were discussing one agricultural policy that was just accepted. And then I wanted to use value neutral term and ask her how agricultural producers were reacting to that, that specific policy. And my friend stopped and she turned towards me and she asked me, you mean peasant? Because she was not used to the term agricultural producer. To her, that sounds too fancy or too incorrect or something. And then I said, yes, of course I mean peasants. So after that moment, I really decided that I'm going to keep this term and then use it in the book, throughout the book. And because peasants that I interviewed are absolutely comfortable with the term peasant in Serbia, and that would be selek. And also this term, the emic term, which is an equivalent for the peasant, is used also in different peasant organizations. So, for example, Banatski, Selek, or banack, which is another equivalent for selek for a peasant. So it's absolutely fine with them to use this term.
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B
Yeah, that's definitely a really interesting. I don't know, I always kind of pick up on language and I always find it so interesting of like why one term is best to describe. I don't know, it's just, it's something that comes through. It's almost like the language used in a lot of different subjects is, you know, it might work here, but it might work not work somewhere else. And so I think that is really, really a good description of, you know, aligning your, your vocabulary with the identity or the way that the, you know, the peasants see themselves. Like they resonate with that not in a class related way or like a socioeconomic related way has nothing to do actually with that.
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C
Exactly. And I also have to, to add that actually the peasant here really, as you rightly noticed, it's, it's not really related neither to the class, neither to the scope of land that they cultivate, but they also have to say that most of them are completely advanced agricultural produce or farmers or use any term that you like that is closer to you to describe this form of activity. So these people regularly cultivate from 5 to maybe 100 hectares. Some have modern mechanization, others don't have that modern mechanization. But nevertheless, even with older mechanization, they still maintain their households. They also still have very good harvest and they are very professional in the job that they do. So it's really not, it's not a term that would refer to their backwardness. Quite close it, I think.
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B
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really, really great way to, you know, explain that. And I agree. I am really big on agriculture is always skilled and highly technical regardless of, of the modern advances that we're applying. Even at its most elementary, elementary level, or maybe at this point, like the most dated technology is still very specialized area of knowledge to be able to apply those, you know, whatever technologies you're working with or whatever methods you're working with. It's very, it's very skilled and I'm very, very big on that. So I appreciate that you brought that up that this term peasant has no association with the, the methods that they're using or the knowledge that they have to tend to this land. And you know, the skill of the labor that they're doing.
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C
They're simply, you know, it's simply emic term. It's simply the term that they use in everyday communication whatsoever.
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B
Yeah. So I want to get kind of diving into this book. What's really your main argument here with the laissez faire peasant? What are you, you know, trying to make sure is established?
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C
So, Jenna, I think I really need to give you a background first. So the background is that I think that Serbian agriculture is one of the few quite interesting examples of European agriculture where states rural development policies, but also other agricultural policies were failing one after another. But despite that, despite different plans that the state had for peasants. For example, in socialist period, it was the idea that peasants get canceled or that their numbers get quite reduced and so that you convert peasants into factory workers. And then later on, there were many other policies that, that had different ideas of modernization of the peasantry, but also the modernization of agriculture. And so all of these agricultural policies were failing one after another, yet the peasants did not disappear. And what is quite important to say here is that peasants and agriculture was striving and was also developing over the decades. So I was really asking myself what is really building their resilience, how they manage to survive at the same time, and what is their relationship with these failing agricultural policies? And so I tried to decode the peasant resilience which emerges from the combination of the sense of autonomy which drives its force from land ownership. Then we also have another factor which is village ethics, individualism, skepticism, distrust, and life on the periphery. So all these factors taken together shape what they call in the book the less affair mentality. And the less affair mentality explained these autonomous actions of peasants and values of peasants that build their resilience on the one side and reject and modify agricultural policies on the other side. The laissez faire peasant also determines the level of cooperation. The laissez faire mentality also determines the level of cooperation with the state and also the levels of cooperation with others. So this was sort of the first argument that I try to make to explain through this less affair mentality, the resilience of peasants and the reasons why they reject or why they modify agricultural policies. On the other hand, the idea was to actually these falling policies and failing policies really intrigued my curiosity. And then I start asking myself what we know, how rural development really takes place. I mean, if we do see that agricultural policies are falling on the one side, and then you see the thriving peasants on the other side, what is wrong here? And then I try to understand this discrepancy between the realities and between agricultural policies, how it's possible. And then I came to argue, based on the evidences that I collect, that actually the development, rural development really doesn't take place through the state planning and through the state agency and through the state interventions. The Serbian case really demonstrates this. Well, there are so many policies that fail in socialism, but also as of 2000, when Serbia became liberal democracy. So the idea of planning, which is engraved in agricultural policies, but also in rural development strategies, was something that I discovered later was really sending completely wrong initiatives. So instead of the development, they were sporing, clientelism, ran seeking and very non developmental behavior. So I argued eventually essentially that the planning, the idea of planning is not really, and the state plans are not really the factors that can spur rural development. Because very often we have that very narrow institutionalistic understanding of change where we think that only by implementing new regulations and implementing new bureaucrats, these factors are going to ensure the change. And these factors are absolutely sufficient that everything functions perfectly at the field side. But this is really not the case in Serbian case. The expansion of agricultural regulation and new strategies and new policies also brought with itself the expansion of bureaucrats. And expansion of bureaucrats also brought with itself a lot of clientelism, a lot of rent sinking and a lot of. Of other nepotism, of course, which is everything, but is not really supporting rural development. So these are basically two major arguments that they're making. The first is explaining the resilience and the second questioning agricultural policies.
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B
That's very fascinating. Thank you for. Thank you for kind of explaining that. And I kind of get the sense that when you were discussing the agricultural policies, the planning, there's kind of these defining moments that you seem to allude to. And I know that you talk about those in your book. And that's really important to the structure of the laissez faire peasant. What are those defining moments of Serbian agricultural politics that seem to shape the peasants relationship to the state and their reactions to policy change? Kind of central to talking about the resilience of the peasant community and the villages that you study?
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C
Thank you, Jede. I also think that this is very important question so that our listeners can understand better the background of Serbia, which was actually pretty complicated because over the last hundred years Serbia has experienced structurally different forms of political organization. So Serbia was a capitalist monarchy from 1882 until 1941. Then it was a socialist state from 1945 until 1992. Then it was an autocratic state from 1992 to 2000. And it became a liberal democracy as of 2000 until today, although we have serious shortfalls of of liberal democracy values as of 2012. So common to all these phases was that in all these four different epochs, the state intended to change the peasants. It had its own agenda that was important for this particular epochs. So the agenda was about to change the peasants, to modernize them, to enable them to thrive better, et cetera, et cetera. So in monarchy, in capitalist monarchy in Serbia, there were different aspects that were focused on and that were supported. So as a capitalist monarchy, of course, the major idea behind was, was that peasants are the landowners. So the idea behind the first agricultural reform that was implemented in the first Yugoslavia. Was exactly aimed at empowering peasants through enabling them to become the landowners. And then it was also enabling them to make the production and use the preferences of market economy. And trade their agricultural products, products freely on the markets. And then with social estate that emerged immediately after the Second World War, in 1945, this idea completely has been changed. So with the second agrarian reform, the idea behind was that peasants get limited the scope of their private property. They first started with 36 hectares. And then in 1953, peasants were allowed to possess only 10 hectares of land. So this Yugoslav example was a bit different example from other Eastern European countries that also experienced socialism. And the point was behind that, actually peasants were. The idea of the state behind was that the peasants tried to become intrigued by existence of peasant cooperatives, that they start working for peasant cooperatives. The idea behind was also to prioritize collective over private property and central plant economy. There was also compulsory delivery and progressive taxation. So the idea was that it was a state that was controlling, organizing and distributing the land. And also was organizing the production on the countryside. On the other hand, after 1992, we got the authoritarian state. And the problem with the authoritarian state was privatization of socialist estates. But at the same time, because of very difficult political situation in the country during this decade, the authoritarian state was very indifferent towards private property and agricultural households. So it can be said that really that was one decade when state was not that much present in the life of agricultural producers. And the state presence in the countryside was limited to the privatization of former state agricultural industries or work cooperatives, peasant cooperatives and so on. And then we came to the point when we embraced liberal democracy as of 2000. And with this new ideology in place, the priority was on the professionalization of agriculture. Through establishing agricultural associations, cooperatives. There were also different ideas about insurance. Then the idea was also to professionalize agriculture through reducing informal trade and fostering also export oriented agriculture and so on. So all these four decades brought about some aspects of failure. And I should just mention, for example, during the socialist period, because it lasted longer. That was the longest phase of Serbian history comparing to others. Even though the state was favoring state over and collective over private property, peasants nevertheless always found a way to preserve private property. And during all this time, peasants were actually fostering private agriculture and fostering private investments instead of state. So the peasants didn't want to become members of peasant cooperatives. They also were absolutely against agricultural collectivization and property collectivization. And on the other hand, if you go through the statistical data, you will also see that peasants were constantly favoring privatization of agriculture. Then after 2000, for example, we will also see that many plans that state had for peasants, such as as forming these agricultural associations or organizations, were also failing one after another, because peasants were not willing to join any agricultural association or cooperation, even though these were heavily subsidized by the state, and even though these were heavily promoted by even common agricultural policies, which Serbia in a way starts to copy paste from the European regulation as a candidate state, too many agricultural policies are actually copy pasting patterns of agricultural policies that already exist in the European Union. And in this setup, associations, expert oriented agriculture, agricultural corporations, cooperatives, et cetera, are, are seen as the backbones of future agriculture and the future professional agricultural producers. And at a field in Serbia, we see that none of this had been very successful. And what is also quite interesting was that there is also a huge resistance among peasants to be compulsory insured by the state. So peasants do not want to be insured by the state. They very often, or actually only few in guy really ever consider taking insurance for their crops, because they very often rely on their own risk management mechanisms and they trust more to their own risk mechanisms than to the state and also to the providers of insurance. On the other hand, peasants also reject too often to be insured as pensioners by the state, and that there are many, many, many reasons why they reject this policy. So overall, it seemed on the surface that all these policies that were aimed at making professional farmers making this transition from peasants to farmers was failing. And almost none of these policies were ever adopted in Serbian village.
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B
That's really, really interesting. Thank you. I guess, kind of thinking about this book more broadly, among the subjects that you studied, what were their opinions or kind of attitudes toward the economic transition of the 1990s? That transition away from socialism into under privatization and all of that. How were they affected by it or perceive its impacts? Because such a central theme of this book is their resilience among this kind of tumultuous, this tumultuous state policy and how they navigated that. But yeah, I guess I'm just wondering a little bit more about were they concerned? Did they see it as potentially a positive considering that they had maintained their private land holdings? I don't know. I'm just, I'm curious about a lot of Asphy.
- [38:15]
C
So yeah, yes, the point was that actually the sentence with which I opened the book was that land never stays uncultivated, no matter political or economic conditions. So that was the statement of one of my interlocutors, and he said this statement when we were talking exactly about the situation during the 90s. So the statement captures the situation and the relationship of the peasants toward their land and toward their work, both in bad and good times. So whatever happens to them, true peasants will never leave his or her land uncultivated. They will always find the way to cultivate it, even if that means cultivating with the loss. The 90s were a particularly bad time because during the 90s, everything collapsed. The country was in war. For the listeners who do not know Serbian history, from 1992 to 1995, Yugoslavia was falling apart and there was a civil war between the former states that were forming Yugoslavia, between Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. And then after that we had hyperinflation, which was one of the biggest hyperinflations in the world. And then after that again, we had another war in 1999 on the Kosovo, with Kosovo. So it was a very turbulent epoch. And during this time, as I already mentioned, state was not really paying any attention whatsoever to peasants and to agriculture. Agriculture back then was seen just as a resource to get additional resources to privatize and then potentially finance either the war or either the political elites or either different political campaigns that would enable the party in power to remain in power. So the point was that back then people really didn't know how to cope with all these difficult times. And actually that was, let's say, lawless state during the 90s. And the whole agricultural system was falling apart in just a few years. And then many services that used to be provided by state agricultural businesses or agricultural institutions were not there anymore. Then veterinary services were also so dismantled. And then new market relations were slowly emerging. Because I also have to remind you that during the 90s, Serbia for the first time is really Getting sort of a market economy. So everything was in a limbo in a way. Market relations were not exactly there, but they were establishing. Whereas, on the other hand, the process of privatization was ongoing and peasants were trying to type in the dark and try to find their own ways. And some were, for example, buying land during that time when the land was still cheap. Others were trying to make their ends meet. And others, for example, were exploring their opportunities and were selling their products through informal markets. But what is quite interesting, during this time, very few peasants really abandoned agriculture back then. And my understanding of this was that paradoxically, during this worst time, peasants sensed the importance of market economy and they anticipated that working with the loss now will pay off later after the war and after the stabilization of the markets. And I think this was intentional it what happened in the field. So as I said, it was really the 90s were very turbulent time. But at the end, peasants also were trying to understand how market economy was functioning. And I think they grasped it very well back then.
- [42:41]
B
Yeah, that's fascinating. Thank you. How does the laissez faire peasant speak to broader interdisciplinary discussions about the ways in which citizens navigate or kind of exist, exist within these state structures and institutions and kind of, I don't know, this is an odd way to say it, but kind of do what they can within these structures and kind of make these structures work for them, I guess. Yeah.
- [43:08]
C
So I wanted to show with this book that informal institutions that are a sublimation of spontaneity and virtues in the countryside are conducive to individual and collective betterment and well being. So, for instance, many local institutions, such as credit on trust that I describe in the book, then gleaning, then village ceremonies, funerals, buying practices, ensure the minimum of cooperation, the minimum threshold for community cooperation and dignity. Dignity, on the other hand, land ownership, hard work, thriftiness, institutions of kazde and Tomacin, which would in English mean householder and landowner, motivate people to maintain and improve their households and standing in the village. And these practices ensure dignity of the person. Person, but that they also entail entrepreneurial design, which motivates people to better cultivate and care for the land. That households and livestocks are well maintained, and that sharing of knowledge, but also experience and support for the community is not only demanded, but it is also nurtured. Because thriving and the success in the community, individual success in the community has only. Only makes sense only in the community. So you cannot be a successful person if that is not shared with the community. At least this is the point in the countryside. So all these institutions I'm talking about are conducted to individual and collective betterment and well being. And in fact they're deeply entrenched in the idea of endogenous development. Development. And the point with endogenous development is that locally or spontaneous development is that it spreads horizontally and it is more inclusive than state versions of rural development. And it is more virtuous than opposed to state visions of rural development, because these state visions of rural development are often very different, different towards the virtue. So I argued that peasants really do not need government plans to thrive. They already know how to do this. The issue is whether these local developments may become systematic. And when there is a poor infrastructure, or if there is no infrastructure whatsoever, where there is no principal application of rural law law, there is no hope of systematic rural development. We can only get localized versions of it. So my argument goes farther and I advocate that instead of subsidies and different direct measures of support of peasants, peasants, in fact, truly and desperately, at least in Serbia, need markets, they need infrastructure and they need, need the rule of law. The rest they can handle alone. So with this book I attempted to widen the perspective on the understanding of rural development and to demonstrate that it can take various. It can take that it can happen and that development can be imagined even, even without state intervention, especially in the conditions of technologically advanced capitalism. So that was quite controversial, I would say, statement that I make in this book, because most of the literature is very critical of neoliberal policies and market economy, especially in relation to peasants, whereas I see a potential for them. So let's say that was the argument that I was the main message that I wanted to transmit to the readers.
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B
That's fascinating. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for that. I kind of wanted to ask what you're working on now. You mentioned, before we started recording this episode, your research group. And so I'm kind of curious where, now that this book has just been published, where you're going next with this.
- [48:05]
C
So since I'm always interested in development in different shapes and fords of development, especially in the development which is not imagined or advocated by the state, my next project is a book project, which is why Development Cooperation project fail. So I'm about to finalize this book manuscript and it will be published by Springer Nature. That was the work that I did from 2019 to 2022 in Kosovo, because Kosovo as a post conflict country was a specific place where I could observe development, but in a little bit, bit untypical setting because the situation There is not optimal. You had a war there. The ethnically mixed areas and villages where ethnic Kosovo and ethnic Kosovo Albanians and ethnic Kosovo Serbs live together is really shaped by distrust, by low cooperation. And so for agriculture, in order to thrive and in order to maintain itself and for the households, you really need to have, have sort of certainty. And you also need to establish cooperation in order to manage your household and manage your day to day business. But in Kosovo this is really not the case. So I was trying to explore how development is emerging. What are the forms of development and what is the role of development organizations there are that actually played the major mediator role in Kosovo because they actually have to bridge this deficiency in trust. They actually have to or they are expected to bring these infrastructures that will enable Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians to cooperate and work together. So I'm writing this book about these mediators in enabling development, about development organizations in Kosovo and their projects in rural Kosovo, how this affects rural population, but also how rural populations see these projects. That development corporation was trying to involve them. And the other project that I just started to run as of June June 2025 is about the embeddedness of one multinational company, Pharmakina, which is based in Democratic Republic of Congo in Bukavu in South Kivu Province. So the interesting story about this company is that the company itself exists continuously since 1946 and Bukavu and particularly South Kivu province is very turbulent region with often conflicts and wars and the company continuously operated without any interruption whatsoever. So the point is how to discover how company exists in this setting and why it matters with the local population and how it attacks affects development of rural populations and rural suppliers that are actually the major suppliers of this company. So in short, these would be two most important projects that I'm working currently on.
- [51:54]
B
Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. Thank you for sharing that and best of luck with those projects. Wrapping up and well, one you're kind of wrapping up and the other one you're just getting started on. So it's very exciting for our listeners. Yovana Dikovitz is the Laissez Faire Peasant. Post Socialist Rural Development in Serbia was published in the UK by University College London Press as well as in the United States by University of Chicago Press in 2025. The Laissez faire Peasant is also available online open access through uclcrest. Yovana, thank you so much again for being here today. I really enjoyed chatting with you and hearing more about the Laissez Faire Peasant.
- [52:33]
C
Thank you Jenna for inviting me. Thank you very much.