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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Jovana Diković, "The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-Socialist Rural Development in Serbia" (UCL Press, 2025)
Description: What if rural progress isn’t about government intervention but about the self-reliance and ingenuity of peasants themselves?
The Laissez-Faire Peasant: Post-Socialist Rural Development in Serbia (UCL Press, 2025) subverts conventional wisdom on rural development by shifting the focus from state-led planning to the agency of peasants themselves. Rejecting the notion that rural populations are passive victims of top-down policies, Jovana Dikovic presents a compelling ethnographic study of three Serbian villages, where autonomy and local cooperation drive economic and social resilience. She introduces the concept of the “laissez-faire peasant”—a figure who thrives outside rigid government schemes, shaping rural developme...