Corporate social responsibility, coexistence and contestation: large farms’ changing responsibilities vis-à-vis rural households in Russia

Abstract

This article investigates the regionally varied changes in social support and responsibilities of large-scale farms vis-à-vis household plot holders and their rural communities in post-Soviet Russia. Ongoing marketisation puts pressure on the Soviet-inherited symbiosis between large farms and household plots. We observe that large farms’ shift to Anglophone-style, explicit Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) hides declining support for villagers and sometimes even dispossession. In the second of our two case studies, a less well-endowed region, the inherited symbiosis continues with modifications (“implicit CSR”) and helps sustain comparatively higher household plot production.