Of oligarchs,orientalists, and cosmopolitans: how “Armenian” is rabiz music?

This paper examines the controversial music genre rabiz in relation to political and socio-economic developments in post-Soviet Armenia. Rabiz, an urban folk-pop genre characterized by melismatic singing and “oriental” embellishments, is a ubiquitous soundtrack to everyday life in the country, with lyrics commonly covering romance, male friendship, and family ties. Ethnographic observations suggest that its popularity draws on the affective appeal with which it captures common hardships and aspirations of post-socialist transition. In spite of this, rabiz is almost universally denounced by nationalist intellectuals and liberal citizens for foreign influences, sentimentality, consumerism, and conservatism. While for the cultured classes, the rejection of rabiz as “un-Armenian” is often an integral part of the construction of a virtuous self, the alternative conceptions of performers and fans reveal the polysemy of Armenianness as a moral category.     

Soft budgets and elastic debt: farm liabilities in the agrarian political economy of post-Soviet Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

Since Tajikistan’s independence, market reforms and pressure from international donors have brought changes to the state’s role in the economy. The official narrative holds that the post-socialist state reduced its control over agriculture, but there are still various mechanisms through which it exerts control over farming. In this paper, I examine Tajikistan’s post-socialist agrarian change through the prism of farm debt. Farm debt used to be an accounting nuisance in Soviet agriculture as a result of so-called soft-budget constraints. In the political economy of post-socialist transformation, farm cotton debt has been transformed into indebted land. I classify this debt ‘elastic’ for its ambiguous nature. It ties farmers to land and makes farmers’ independence illusory. With an in-depth analysis based on original ethnographic insights, I aim to provide a theoretical contribution to the way in which debt is conceptualised and politicised in post-Soviet Tajikistan.     

Conceptualising Party-State Governance and Rule in Laos

ABSTRACT

This article develops a framework for conceptualising authoritarian governance and rule in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. After introducing the national and academic context, which go a significant way towards understanding the paucity of comparative political work on Laos, we propose an approach to studying post-socialist authoritarian and single-party rule that highlights the key political-institutional, cultural-historical and spatial-environmental sources of party-state power and authority. In adopting this approach, we seek to redirect attention to the centralising structures of rule under the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, illustrating how authoritarian institutions of the “party-state” operate in and through multiple scales, from the central to the local level. At a time when the country is garnering greater attention than at any time since the Vietnam War, we argue that this examination of critical transitions in Laos under conditions of resource-intensive development, intensifying regional and global integration, and durable one-party authoritarian rule, establishes a framework for future research on the party-state system in Laos, and for understanding and contextualising the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party regime in regional comparative perspective.     

From sacrum to profanum: reinterpretation of communist places of power in Baltic cities

Places always represent the social and cultural dimensions of societies, seen through relationships between ideas, beliefs, and hopes. Places and their social practices are interwoven into the urban fabric and have become vital components of urban and ideological identities. Ideological systems create unique arrangements and classifications of those special places, which can be called “hallowed” or “profaned.” This project focuses on the recent transformation of the communist system of “sacral” spaces and their recent “profanation.” The transformation of meaning, together with the use and attitude toward landscape, has become visible due to spatial and functional manifestations of post-socialist cities.     

‘The sleep has been rubbed from their eyes’: social citizenship and the reproduction of local hierarchies in rural Hungary and Romania

In this paper, we make three interrelated points. First, while much of the recent literature on new forms of citizenship has focused on the diversity of large cities and new forms of migration, we seek to establish rural sites as important arenas for negotiating citizenship. We stress that far from being homogeneous, villages in their struggles over belonging are affected by long-standing diversity as well as global discourses. Second, we seek to complicate the interpretation of the demise of socialism as a radical break manifested in a diminished role of the state. We show that if the central state retreats, local state actors may gain in importance for local negotiations of citizenship. Third, we explore how the local state actors sometimes use their new powers over social rights to recreate boundaries of belonging through public performances tied to the administration of these rights. We go on to explore the normative basis for these performances and indicate that membership is still based on a contribution of work to the common good. This can best be conceptualised as a shifting continuity rather than a sharp break after 1989.     

Is sextremism the new feminism? Perspectives from Pussy Riot and Femen

As Pussy Riot has changed the face of political protest in Russia, to the south, Ukraine has seen the emergence of Femen, famous for their topless protests against everything from sex tourism and trafficking to hot water shut-offs in Kyiv to sexism in the Ukrainian government to Putin's visits to Ukraine. Their concurrent appearance in the post-Soviet sphere encourages a discussion around the mobilization of sexuality as protest in the region. Both groups appropriate sexual language and imagery as well as physical sexuality in protest of their current regimes. This article engages the question of similarities between the two groups’ efforts and considers what differences structure their political goals and philosophies. What potential does the global visibility of these groups have to influence an emerging women's movement, and, more generally, how can sexuality be harnessed as a unifying force in anti-government activism in post-socialist Russia and Ukraine?     

Oasis in the steppe: health and masculinity of Kazakhstani miners

ABSTRACT

This article studies the masculinities of Russian-speaking miners in Kazakhstan through an ethnographic study conducted in a miners’ sanatorium, a place of heightened sociality. Studies of gender in Central Asia have mostly focussed on women, and both masculinity and femininity are studied in relation to Islam and the nation-state. This article aims to make a contribution to the study of working-class masculinities in Northern Kazakhstan, arguing that labour and professional identities are important in performing masculinities. Kazakhstani miners wish to show that they are good colleagues, good drinkers, sexually capable and providers for the family. New economic pressures and deteriorating work conditions challenge the miner’s body and make it hard for miners to live up to the hegemonic masculinity.     

State marionettes,phantom organisations or genuine movements? The paradoxical emergence of rural social movements in post-socialist Russia

Of all the rural social movements in the world, those in post-socialist Russia have been considered to be among the weakest. Nevertheless, triggered by the neo-liberal reforms in the countryside, state attention to agriculture and rising land conflicts, new social movement organisations with a strong political orientation are emerging in Russia today. This sudden burst of civil activity, however, raises questions as to how genuine and independent the emerging organisations are. Our research shows that many rural movements, agricultural associations, farm unions and rural political parties lack constituency, support the status quo and/or are actually counterfeits (what we call ‘phantom movement organisations’). With this analysis, we aim to explain the nature of social movements in the post-Soviet countryside and offer an original contribution to the theory on and practice of rural social movements.     

Post-socialist deindustrialisation and its gendered structure of feeling: the devaluation of women’s work in the Croatian garment industry

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the devaluation of women’s industrial work during the transition from market socialism to capitalism in Croatia. On the basis of oral history interviews with former workers from the Arena knitwear factory in Pula, it explores the gendered structure of feeling created by socialist industrialisation, and its transformations during post-socialist deindustrialisation. In socialist Yugoslavia, female industrial workers participated in the discourses and practices of workers’ self-management. Despite their hard work and their low wages, most workers fondly remember the factory as a space of socialisation, solidarity and empowerment. The factory functioned as a redistributive centre for accessing welfare rights. After post-socialist transition, workers experienced worsening social rights, precarity and exploitation as a result of deindustrialisation, privatisation and the neo-liberal withdrawal of the welfare state. Workers’ nostalgic narratives about their work experiences during socialism are mobilised to reclaim the dignity and value of work in post-socialist times.     

Towards a new past: Some reflections on nationalism in post-socialist Slovakia

By analysing two commemorative events organized shortly before and after the 2010 parliamentary elections in Slovakia, this article demonstrates how the Prime Minister Robert Fico and his collaborators exploited these ceremonies to promote a more inclusive definition of political community than their right-wing counterparts. Although commentators have interpreted the continuous political success of the political party Smer-SD in terms of negatively connotated nationalism and national populism, Fico's discursive framework allows him to address those who have been stigmatized by post-1989 neoliberalism, especially former communists and people unable or unwilling to adapt to the rapid changes brought about by post-socialist social, economic, political as well as cultural transition(s). Instead of backwardness, Fico's anti-elitist and anti-capitalist rhetoric opened a new symbolic universe to these groups. The history narratives that formed an important part of this universe were not used to exclude the Other, but rather to create a meaningful future for those who have been ignored by (neo-)liberal ideals. This paper argues for an interpretation of post-socialist populist parties that would take into account culturally relevant symbolic structures advanced by these parties.