Introductory Remarks

The analyses presented in the previous chapters dealt with various aspects of functioning of family farms, their economic and social condition, as well financial situation, all of which affected their development strategies. The farmers, as a social category, were also the subject of the analyses and attention was given to their socio-demographic characteristics, as well as the professional and social roles they fulfilled. Numerous analyses addressed various aspects of the functioning of the farms, including their material, social, and demographic situation. In this chapter, attention will be given to farmers and their families in a different context, namely, the context of their everyday life and its conditions in the contemporary globalized world. Both of these terms, quality of life and globalization, are central here and could be the subject of interest of representatives of numerous academic disciplines. Globalization, although it prompts great interest from economists, also attracts the attention of lawyers, political scientists, pedagogy experts, psychologists and, especially, sociologists (see, e.g., Beck, 1992, 2000; Bauman, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007; Stiglitz, 2002; Domański&Pokropek, 2011; Chimiak & Fronia, 2012; Wasilewski, 2014; Walas- -Trębacz, 2017). Globalization involves processes such as:

These processes have concrete social consequences for family farms, as well as the members of farm households, and the way they reach farms and affect their functioning is presented in an earlier chapter of this publication. As stated by Polish sociologist Jacek Wasilewski,