New Lithuania in Old Hands

Based on detailed ethnographic material, 'New Lithuania in Old Hands' analyzes the impact that European Union membership has had upon the country's ageing small-scale farmers. Addressing the highly relevant themes of European Union enlargement and the 'Return to Europe', this book describes how Lithuania's EU membership has been a far cry from the scenarios of wealth and overabundance once promised. Rather, the text details the agrarian sector's recent movement towards subsistence production, increased insecurity and a reinforcement of kinship obligations, and acknowledges that it is the country's ageing 'Soviet generation' - as opposed to its political elite - that has brought into effect the restructuring of the agricultural sector in the wake of Lithuania's EU accession.