Paper short abstract:

I discuss the cultural economy concept of ‘post-peasant house’ as a tool for understanding the success of post-socialist integralism in East Central Europe alias New Integral Europe that goes beyond the imprecise categories of ‘class’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘ideology’, and the like.

Paper long abstract:

I wish to discuss the concept and practice of 'post-peasant house' as a tool for understanding the ongoing success of post-socialist integralism in East Central Europe alias New Integral Europe. In my previous work I identified patterns of the anti-modernist movement emerging from socialist and post-socialist transformation and called it 'post-peasant populism'. As I argued, this post-peasant populism is not about the peasantry; rather, it can be defined as a type of modern political culture based on a non-urban social structure and imagined rurality as emerged under ambivalent modernization of state socialism.

In this paper I focus on the interplay of two concepts related to post-peasant populism -- 'the house', inspired by the work of Stephen Gudeman, and 'integralism', the Counter-Enlightenment politics conceptualized by Douglas Holmes. I argue the 'post-peasant house' emerged under state socialism and represents the idea and practice of livelihood, its change and transmission over time, which incorporates material, symbolic, and intellectual components of people's economy. This economy as a model is 'embedded' within and gives rise to patterns of politics that leaders know intimately well and cultivate it for their followers. I call it 'post-peasant integralism'. I believe the post-peasant house, the security and defense of its 'good life' via post-peasant integralism, goes beyond the imprecise categories of 'class', 'ethnicity', 'ideology' and the like and offers better understanding of region's politics entrenched in longue durée processes, ambivalent modernization under state socialism, and resulting from post-socialist and European integration.