Abstract
This chapter focuses on the recent projectification of development and the results of this process for rural localities in Hungary. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Kislapos, a small village in Northern Hungary, the chapter discusses the collision of different views held by various actors in a development programme targeted at ‘disadvantaged micro-regions’. It shows that the new frames of rural/regional development and decentralisation led to the rise of a variety of actors who have gained supreme importance for local development in rural places. It delineates the characteristics that arise from the particular position of this new ‘project class’ by utilising the conceptual tools of scales to describe their differentiated access to knowledge, networks, ideas and other resources, as well as their different levels of agency. As such, the chapter furthers recent theorisations on the importance of geographical and social scale for the analysis of development actors and their effects on rural areas.
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Notes
- 1.
The names of the organisation, the village and the interviewees were changed, apart from Ádám Kullmann, who agreed to the interview as a public figure. The programme originally aimed at alleviating the homeless problem of large cities by assisting homeless families in settling and making their living in abandoned houses of the village. Later, however, further elements were added to the programme, making the organisation a major development actor in the region.
- 2.
The village preserved the former Socialist name for the communal building used for village events.
- 3.
The research was conducted as part of my Ph.D. project that was made possible by the financial and institutional support of Central European University. Part of the research was furthermore undertaken within the frames of ‘Local State and Social Security in Rural Hungary, Romania and Serbia 2009–2011’ project supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.
- 4.
Módszertani útmutató a 33 leghátrányosabb helyzetű kistérség projekt-csomagjának összeállításához, prepared by National Development Agency, LHH Programme Office, September 5, 2008.
- 5.
As Kullmann himself emphasised, there were varying views also within the NDA about the goals, procedures and decision-making in the programme, which, due to limitations of space, cannot be discussed here.
- 6.
For the 2007–2013 period, the value of available grant within LEADER amounts to 70 billion forint, which constitutes only small parts of the LHH grant as divided for all LEADER groups covering the entirety of the country.
- 7.
Macskajános is a Hungarian vernacular, literally meaning Kitty John, implying somebody unimportant.
- 8.
Hevesi Kistérség Tervdokumentum. Komplex felzárkóztató programok készítése a leghátrányosabb helyzetű kistérségekben ÁROP- 1.1.5/B, prepared by Regionális Fejlesztés Holding Rt., Budapest, 29 January 2009, p. 62.
- 9.
It is an alternative institution, usually run by civic organisations or community initiatives as a complementary institution to schools. It is targeted to ‘multiple disadvantaged’ children, who lack those conditions in their families and schools which could enable their educational success.
- 10.
To the tanoda in Bátorterenye and the youth club in Salgótarján.
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Szőke, A. (2013). Projecting the ‘Disadvantaged’: Project Class, Scale Hopping and the Creation of Ruralities. In: Silva, L., Figueiredo, E. (eds) Shaping Rural Areas in Europe. GeoJournal Library, vol 107. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6796-6_6
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