Postsocialism as a Diagnostic Tool Common-Sense Concepts of Power and State in Southern Poland

Are the common-sense concepts of power and state, used in the rural regions of Poland, manifestations of postcommunist or postsocialist mentality? Several fieldwork seasons spent in the Polish countryside let me to conclude that local concepts of power and authority used by my local informants should rather be called “postpeasant” or “posttraditional” than “postsocialist”. The opinions concerning different forms of authority, as well as the state itself, shaped within the local discourse and shared by the contemporary inhabitants of rural areas of Poland, proved difficult to follow without profound understanding of traditional peasant culture, mentality and value system. Therefore, I suggest the term “postpeasant” to be applied in reference to rural communities of contemporary Poland as more accurate than the widely used term “postsocialist”

Common sense · Ethnology · Geography · Peasant · Political science · Rural area · Rural society · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law