Parallel Lives

This book explores the articulation between macro-social historical transformations and the opportunities and constraints that the resultant political and property regimes presented for villagers. It builds on ethnographic analyses of rural Eastern Europe by adding an historical analysis of the configurations and reconfigurations of life trajectories across three successive generations. The villagers studied lived a succession of property and political configurations: democratic and authoritarian regimes grounded in free market and private property until 1947, a totalitarian regime of state-socialism until 1989, and a liberal democracy re-building a free market economy from 1990 until today. It also brings forward an empirical exploration of the concept of generation, grounded on a re-reading of Karl Mannheim. The book is distinctive in its historical breath, covering a century via a detailed, rich ethnographic study, that includes a diversity of social positions (from the richest members of the community to those of very poor means) and a diversity of three ethnicities and religions.