ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the village as a model of settlement centrally linked to food production in the Balkan region of Eastern Europe in two phases of its history. Firstly, it examines the transformation of landscape and food production resulting from the communist collectivisation processes (1949–89). Systematisation and mechanisation of food production altered the village and its countryside. Industrialisation under state socialism also led to an exodus of rural people from the village.
In the second part, these effects of socialist modernisation are detailed through the story of one village, Zavoj, in the Republic of Macedonia. Migration of men from the village led to the feminisation of the agricultural work force, but post-communist permanent migration radically altered food production processes (1988–2010). However, this chapter argues that ties between the village, its landscape, and those that migrated, renewed by a recreational agenda, have continued alternative agricultural practices.
