Participants

Alexander Vorbrugg⁴; Natalia Mamonova³; Dace Dzenovska⁵; Petr Jehlička²; Mihai Varga¹; Jiayi Zhou⁶;  ¹ Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany;  ² Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czechia;  ³ Ruralis – Institutt for rural- og regionalforsknin, Norway;  ⁴ University of Bern , Switzerland;  ⁵ COMPAS, University of Oxford, UK;  ⁶ SIPRI, Sweden

Discussion

The monograph Dispersed Dispossession delves into the paradoxical concurrence of agricultural revival and rural decline in Russia. Through extensive fieldwork, Alexander Vorbrugg gives rare insights into the operations of large agricultural companies and reveals how the deterioration of material infrastructures, social arrangements, government and local supports, and collective goods erode the conditions of rural inhabitants’ well-being and agency. Vorbrugg introduces “dispersed dispossession,” a concept that helps to relate gradual degradation to appropriation and agency. The concept captures losses that have been accumulated across Soviet, reform, and state-capitalist phases and stick to places, persons and potentialities. These losses are perpetuated and exploited by businesses and politicians and have profound implications for the conditions for resistance, shaping the range of conceivable alternatives. They are part of a history that is not fully past.

The book provides a nuanced analysis of rural change in Russia during the 2010s, a crucial and formative phase marked by the consolidation of giant agricultural companies, large land deals, soaring exports, and spectacular failures of investment projects. It contextualizes complex and often ambivalent empirical realities within historical and political-economic frameworks. By rethinking the concept of dispossession, ‘Dispersed Dispossession’ offers a critical lens on rural change in Russia and invites readers to consider its global relevance.