TY - JOUR
T1 - Watermelon production as the driver of community resilience
T2 - More-than-human agency and the transforming rural assemblage
AU - Lendvay, Márton
N1 - Funding Information:
Thirdly, the Medgyesegyháza case study is contextualized in the frame of a wider agricultural production system, structured according to principles of the EU commodity market and legislative framework primarily controlled and coded by the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This assemblage of land, commodities and markets embraces aspects of land tenure and taxation (coded in regulations the Act LV of 1994 on arable land), the use of land (limited by Act Number 55/1194, Chapter II.), food security governed by the Hungarian National Foodchain Safety Authority (NÉBIH) and maintenance of marketing channels supported by the Hungarian Interprofessional Organisation for Fruit and Vegetables (FruitVeB). The structure of land ownership structure in Medgyesegyháza follows Hungary's traditionally fragmented and scattered pattern, with an average of 3 ha per unit. These properties act as the premises of the assemblage's territorialisation and coding, however, as Section 6 elaborates, cannot fully explain resilience in this case study.
Funding Information:
The author thanks Professor Michael Woods and Dr Jesse Heley for helpful discussions and the referees for the incisive comments. This work was supported by the Aberystwyth University Doctoral Career Development Scholarship.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/8/31
Y1 - 2021/8/31
N2 - The dynamics of rural change are often linked to frameworks of ‘rural community resilience’, a body of literature associated with various aspects of society including social capital, community initiatives, and governance. Drawing on emergent literature, this study aims to explore how assemblage approaches may disseminate resilience thinking via dissolving structure-agency and bounce-back-transformative divisions. The paper explores how deliberate, and often policy-orientated actions, are intertwined with ‘non-intentional’ activities and processes that are deeply embedded in daily rural life. The paper further illustrates rural development processes through a case study of the watermelon-producing community of Medgyesegyháza, Hungary: a community that, in recent years, has been praised for its endurance throughout a period of socio-economic turbulence. The aim is to demonstrate how assemblage theory may explain the emergence of intermingling human and non-human agency. It was observed that the resilience of the rural community assemblage is embedded in daily practices, and emerges from relations between two main components: humans and watermelons. By applying the concept of territorialisation, this paper examines how components of the assemblage become aligned as provisional stability is established. The paper contends that the engagement with non-humans establishes community identity, but changes in relations de-territorialise the assemblage and trigger new contingencies. The precarious nature of human-watermelon relationships have repercussions on stability as they may serve as drivers of change.
AB - The dynamics of rural change are often linked to frameworks of ‘rural community resilience’, a body of literature associated with various aspects of society including social capital, community initiatives, and governance. Drawing on emergent literature, this study aims to explore how assemblage approaches may disseminate resilience thinking via dissolving structure-agency and bounce-back-transformative divisions. The paper explores how deliberate, and often policy-orientated actions, are intertwined with ‘non-intentional’ activities and processes that are deeply embedded in daily rural life. The paper further illustrates rural development processes through a case study of the watermelon-producing community of Medgyesegyháza, Hungary: a community that, in recent years, has been praised for its endurance throughout a period of socio-economic turbulence. The aim is to demonstrate how assemblage theory may explain the emergence of intermingling human and non-human agency. It was observed that the resilience of the rural community assemblage is embedded in daily practices, and emerges from relations between two main components: humans and watermelons. By applying the concept of territorialisation, this paper examines how components of the assemblage become aligned as provisional stability is established. The paper contends that the engagement with non-humans establishes community identity, but changes in relations de-territorialise the assemblage and trigger new contingencies. The precarious nature of human-watermelon relationships have repercussions on stability as they may serve as drivers of change.
KW - Assemblage theory
KW - Hungary
KW - More-than-human agency
KW - Rural community resilience
KW - Watermelon
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110417008&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.018
DO - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.06.018
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85110417008
SN - 0743-0167
VL - 86
SP - 376
EP - 385
JO - Journal of Rural Studies
JF - Journal of Rural Studies
ER -