Discursive no man's land: Analysing the discourse of the rural in the transitional Czech Republic

This paper presents an analysis of the expert discourse of the rural in the period of transition in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Before 1989, the discourse was monopolised by the governing communist regime. With EU accession in 2004, the discourse became standardised to the EU programmes and policies. The period in between these two dates is referred to as “discursive no man's land” in which new meanings, functions and values were assigned to the rural. The paper concentrates on (a) how the rural was established as a public issue to be addressed by experts, (b) how the discourses of the rural changed under the influence of structural, macro-social factors and (c) what were the grounds on which state intervention in favour of the rural was perceived as legitimate. In answering these questions, the analysis identifies agriculture as a key element which provided a “function” for the pre-1989 instrumental understanding of the rural. After the collapse of the regime and the rapid shrinking of the agricultural sector in the country, the discourses of the rural took two paths. First, experts were looking for “new functions” of the rural, which came to be seen in cultural alternatives to urban modernity. Second, the figure of “rural renewal” emerged, aiming to rectify the perceived wrongdoings of the past.