Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-à-vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.

Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-à-vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.

Social differentiation, poverty and the emergence of the newly rich occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have seldom been analysed from a class perspective. Rethinking Class in Russia addresses this absence by exploring the manner in which class positions are constructed and negotiated in the new Russia. Bringing an ethnographic and cultural studies approach to the topic, this book demonstrates that class is a central axis along which power and inequality are organized in Russia, revealing how symbolic, cultural and emotional dimensions are deeply intertwined with economic and material inequalities. Thematically arranged and presenting the latest empirical research, this interdisciplinary volume brings together work from both Western and Russian scholars on a range of spheres and practices, including popular culture, politics, social policy, consumption, education, work, family and everyday life. By engaging with discussions in new class analysis and by highlighting how the logic of global neoliberal capitalism is appropriated and negotiated vis-à-vis the Soviet hierarchies of value and worth, this book offers a multifaceted and carefully contextualized picture of class relations and identities in contemporary Russia and makes a contribution to the theorisation of class and inequality in a post-Cold War era. As such it will appeal to those with interests in sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, gender studies, Russian and Eastern European studies, and media and cultural studies.

By comparing the current reform process under President Raúl Castro to Cuba’s opening to market capitalism during the 1990s Special Period crisis, Everyday Adjustments in Havana: Economic Reforms, Mobility, and Emerging Inequalities highlights the differences and continuities between adjustments in both periods and their social impacts. It explores the impacts of specific policies such as the expansion of self-employment and the recreation of a private housing market, examining how changes in domestic and international policies after 2011 have modified the post-Special Period status quo and contributed to the formation of new social groups that did not previously exist in Cuba’s Socialist society.

The thesis discusses how patriotic education is openly promoted by the government in contemporary Russia through a series of programmes, entitled the 'State Programme for the Patriotic Education of the Citizens of the Russian Federation', promoted since 2001. However, this thesis presents the argument that patriotic education cannot fully be understood through examination of these formally organised initiatives. Instead, the thesis contributes towards a rethinking of patriotic education as a communicative process whereby multiple ideas of the nation are delivered to young people, both in formal and informal settings. The thesis argues that this promotion of patriotic education is connected to long-standing debates on nations and nationalism in Russia, but also places these within the more general discourse on nations and nationalism, in particular Anderson's (2006) definition of the nation as an 'imagined community'. The thesis is positioned within, and contributes to, more recent arguments surrounding the need to examine everyday ideas of the nation, but maintains a sense of the role played by elites in producing ideas of the nation by intercepting state-produced ideas represented within the education system. Importantly, the three-stage research design maps not only the delivery of these state ideas, but also accesses how these ideas are received and articulated by young people themselves, thus contributing to an understanding of cultural production. This is achieved through triangulation of three qualitative methods: analysis of textbooks, classroom observation, and semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, conducted in St Petersburg. The data generated demonstrates that young people articulate both a sense of local and national belonging, cultivated just as much through their surroundings (historic buildings etc.) as through formal education. The thesis contributes to studies of (Russian) youth by demonstrating that young people negotiate with formal and informal ideas of belonging as they formulate their own understandings and expressions of belonging.

"All the essays in this collection were first presented at a conference ... held in Moscow in October 1992"--Foreword.

While there has been a spate of books concerned with race and ethnicity in Europe more specifically, this timely volume offers a broader perspective and positions issues of identity, ethnicity, multiculturalism, xenophobia, regionalism and ethnonationalism within the wider contexts of trans- and supranationalism. With the weakening of welfare states and the homogenizing influences of globalization, nations within both Eastern and Western Europe are discovering that the battlefield of political action is being redefined, and as a result emotional alliances threaten to bypass the democratic systems of the past. Offering fresh insights that are both empirically and theoretically informed, this book illuminates the processes and consequences of these new developments. In particular, it reviews Marx's, Durkheim's and Simmel's theories on nationalism and national identity, and presents case studies of Belgium, Italy's Northern League, right-wing intellectual production in Russia, and much more.

This text is informed by the view that part of the answer to the conundrum - Did we fail to anticipate the end of the Cold War? - lies in a dissection of the ways in which the USSR was theorized by its leading practitioners in the West.

"Given all this, a strong case can be made for revisiting George Vernadsky's understanding of what he himself called a "Russian history." Particularly intriguing is the exploration of how Vernadsky's Eurasianism relates both to his own struggles with identity issues and to his thinking on empire, nation, and Russian and Ukrainian history. Thus, in the present article I propose to place Vernadsky's research on Russian and Ukrainian history within the context of his biography and Eurasianist worldview. My central argument is that George Vernadsky's post-1917 historical scholarship was influenced by one powerful motive--his personal search for national identity, a search that was obviously made more complicated by his exile. Internal contradictions and the resultant tensions between Ukrainian origin and imperial Weltanschauung, between his ardent love of "historical Russia" and his wretched status as an émigré deprived of his beloved homeland by the victorious Bolshevik regime, made grappling with the issue of identity emotionally agonizing for Vernadsky, but also fruitful in terms of producing new and unorthodox solutions."--Page 3.