The Post-Collective Village: A Tale of Two Transitions

SummaryThis paper provides an ethnographic look at economic change in rural areas of remote regions of Russia and China. While the structural conditions of agriculture at the outset of reform partially explain the dramatically different trajectories of reform seen in my study sites, the current state of economic stagnation or economic development in these areas should not primarily be seen as a legacy of pre-reform conditions. It is largely the economic policies pursued by the Russian and Chinese governments that have created or failed to create the conditions that enable post-socialist farmers to take advantage of market opportunities.