New Lithuania in Old Hands
Effects and Outcomes of EUropeanization in Rural Lithuania
By (author) Ida Harboe Knudsen
Publication date:
01 May 2012Publisher
Anthem PressDimensions:
229x153mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780857284532
Based on detailed ethnographic material, “New Lithuania in Old Hands” analyzes the impact that European Union accession has had upon the country’s aging smallscale farmers, and describes how the reality of Lithuania’s EU membership has been a far cry from the scenarios of wealth and overabundance once promised. The text reveals that, in many instances, membership has resulted in a return to subsistence production, increased insecurity and a reinforcement of kinship obligations. Thus instead of treating the European Union as an elite project and voicing the support of various other segments of the population, this volume shows how broad parts of the rural population have been affected by and engaged in processes of change following Lithuania’s accession – changes that threaten to have a large impact upon the future of the country’s family structures and its farming demographic.
“Analyzing Lithuania’s development as two parallel and intertwined processes – withdrawing from the Soviet Union and entering the EU – ‘New Lithuania in Old Hands’ provides a convincing understanding of the country’s continuities and discontinuities with its socialist past. The book’s vivid ethnographic examples provide a deep insight into Lithuanians’ ambivalent feelings of anxiety, fear, and hope for affluence and a better future.” —Dr Keebet von Benda-Beckmann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology