Loss and Entitlement: An Oral History of Estonia's Post-Socialist Land Reform
Postdoctoral Research Project by Dr. Paris Pin-Yu Chen
I am interested in how people make sense of the post-socialist land reform in Estonia. My research focuses on how personal experiences of land restitution and privatisation reshaped the individual's relationship with local communities, the state, and the environment from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Drawing on oral history interviews, I examine the changing subjectivities of landowners, land claimants, and land users in the wider context of restorationist politics and socio-economic transformations. The history of these diverse subjectivities can tell us much about the restructuring of rural spaces, competing narratives of justice, and the emotional landscape of land entitlement.
Contact
Dr. Paris Pin-Yu Chen
Research Fellow
Department of History
University of Birmingham
birmingham.ac.uk
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/history/chen-paris-pinyu
Doctoral Research Project by Davis Pumpurins, M.A.
The Agrarian Reform of the Republic of Latvia was a complex process involving new legislation, international discussions, public debates in the press and land redistribution. The scale and impact of the reform transformed both the structure of Latvian society and the rural landscape. Members of society experienced this subjectively, depending on whether they gained or lost property. The concept of subjectivity as an object of study has attracted the attention od researchers in various fields. In historical research, for instance, it is regarded as an individual's personal experience interacting with political, social and cultural factors. I aim to explore how different members of society experienced the land reform by examining 'ego documents', such as diaries, memoirs and interviews. These documents provide a personal perspective on events as they were experienced.
Contact
Davis Pumpurins, M.A.
PhD Candidate Ruhr-Universität Bochum / University of Latvia
Research Associate
Stiftung Martin-Opitz-Bibliothek, Affiliated Institute of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Herne