Seminarium IEiAK - Prof. Chris Hann: The State Farm in World History

The lecture will begin at a macro level by presenting the institution of the state farm as a superior form of property in socialist ideology. Creating "factories in the countryside" was supposed to solve structural problems of economic backwardness. Most of the talk will focus on a case-study from southern Hungary. The Kiskunhalas State Farm enjoyed considerable success, until developments in the Soviet Union undermined its economic viability even before the collapse of socialist power. Many former employees of this farm look back nostalgically and compare it favorably with their experiences in the postsocialist decades. 

Bio:
Chris Hann is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale). He has carried out field research in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and China (Xinjiang). Recent books include Repatriating Polanyi. Market Society in the Visegrád States (Budapest, 2019) and The Great Dispossession. Uyghurs between Civilizations (Berlin, 2020; with Ildikó Bellér-Hann)