Trans-national approaches to locally situated concerns: Exploring the meanings of post-socialist space

Abstract

The need to examine critially existing understandings of processes of societal change in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has formed a key area of debate in recent years. Suggested means for furthering this debate include an examination of the meaning and usefulness of the post-socialist category, a critique of the conceptual and practical divides between East and West, attention to the various impacts of change at the local level, and an active engagement with a wide range of actors (academics, policymakers and practitioners) working both in the UK and in the regions in question.

Notes

1. Co-organized by Jonathan Oldfield (University of Birmingham), Moya Flynn and Rebecca Kay (University of Glasgow), Adrian Smith and Adam Fagan (Queen Mary, University of London) and Tassilo Herrschel (University of Westminster). An introductory two-day workshop was held at Birmingham University in December 2003; the following seminar, ‘Local Responses to Global Challenges’, was held at the University of Glasgow in April 2004; the second seminar ‘Mobilizing Resources for Environmental Protest’, was held at Queen Mary, University of London, in May 2004; the third seminar, ‘Rethinking “Economy” in Post-Socialism’, was held at Queen Mary, University of London, in September 2004; and a concluding two-day workshop was held at the University of Westminster in October 2004. For more information see the project website:<http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/transnational>.

2. For example, Sue Bridger and Frances Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-Socialism: Local Strategies and Regional Responses in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 1998); Chris Hann (ed.), Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia (London and New York: Routledge, 2002); John Pickles and Adrian Smith (eds.), Theorising Transition: The Political Economy of Post-communist Transformation (London: Routledge, 1998).

3. Approximately 80 per cent of the participants were academics (or possessed academic affiliation of some nature), the remainder comprising practitioners, policymakers and other professionals. Furthermore, one third of those categorized as ‘non-academic’ were from CEE and Russia, as were 50 per cent of the postgraduate students attending the seminars.

4. See Caroline Humphrey, ‘Introduction: Does the Category “Postsocialist” Still Make Sense?’ (with Chris Hann and Katherine Verdery), in Hann, Postsocialism, pp.1–28.

5. Katherine Verdery, ‘Introduction: Whither Postsocialism?’ (with Chris Hann and Caroline Humphrey), in Hann (ed.), Postsocialism, p.15.

6. Alison Stenning, ‘Post-socialism and the Changing Geographies of the Everyday in Poland’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series), Vol.30 (2005), pp.113–27 (p.113).

7. Kathrin Hörschelmann, ‘History After the End: Post-socialist Difference in a (Post)modern World’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series), Vol.27 (2002), pp.52–66; Adrian Smith ‘Imagining Geographies of the “New Europe”: Geo-economic Power and the New European Architecture of Integration’, Political Geography, Vol.21 (2002), pp.647–70.

8. See Sue Bridger and Frances Pine, ‘Introduction: Transitions to Post-socialism and Cultures of Survival’, in Bridger and Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-Socialism, pp.1–15; Michael Burawoy and Katherine Verdery, ‘Introduction’, in Michael Burawoy and Katherine Verdery (eds.), Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Post-Socialist World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp.1–17; Rebecca Kay, Russian Women and their Organizations: Gender, Discrimination and Grassroots Women's Organizations (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000); Hilary Pilkington, Migration, Identity and Displacement in Post-Soviet Russia (London: Routledge, 1998); Moya Flynn, Migrant Resettlement in the Russian Federation: Reconstructing Homes and Homelands (London: Anthem, 2004).

9. Bridger and Pine (ed.), Surviving Post-Socialism, p.5.

10. Hann (ed.), Postsocialism, p.1

11. Stenning, ‘Post-socialism and the Changing Geographies’, p.124.

12. See Jonathan D. Oldfield, Russian Nature: Exploring the Environmental Consequences of Societal Change (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

13. Merje Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion and the Reinscription of Otherness in East–Central Europe’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol.28, No.4 (2004), pp.472–89 (p.474).

14. See Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994).

15. Burawoy and Verdery (eds.), Uncertain Transition, p.15.

16. See Bridger and Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-Socialism, pp.5–6.

17. Burawoy and Verdery, Uncertain Transition, pp.1–2; Smith and Pickles, ‘Introduction: Theorising Transition and the Political Economy of Transformation’, in Pickles and Smith (eds.), Theorising Transition, pp.1–22; Chris Pickvance, Local Environmental Regulation in Post-socialism: A Hungarian Case Study (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp.8–11; Adam Swain and Jane Hardy, ‘Globalization, Institutions, Foreign Investment and the Reintegration of East and Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union with the World Economy’, Regional Studies, Vol.32, No.7 (1998), pp.587–90.

18. Oldfield, Russian Nature, pp.21–41; Swain and Hardy, ‘Globalization’, pp.588–9.

19. Denis Kandiyoti, ‘How Far Do Analyses of Postsocialism Travel? The Case of Central Asia’, in Hann (ed.), Postsocialism, p.252.

20. Bridger and Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-Socialism, p.6; see also Benjamin Forest and Juliet Johnson, ‘Unraveling the Threads of History: Soviet-era Monuments and Post-Soviet National Identity in Moscow’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol.92, No.3 (2002), pp.534–47.

21. Humphrey, ‘Introduction: Does the Category “Postsocialist” Still Make Sense?’, p.14.

22. Burawoy and Verdery (eds.), Uncertain Transition, p.2; see also Bridger and Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-socialism, pp.2, 6; Stenning, ‘Post-socialism and the Changing Geographies’, p.123.

23. Hann, ‘Introduction: Farewell to the Socialist “Other”’ (with Caroline Humphrey and Katherine Verdery), in Hann (ed.), Postsocialism, p.5.

24. See ibid, p.7.

25. Anthony Bebbington, ‘Global Networks and Local Developments: Agendas for Development Geography’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol.94, No.3 (2003), pp.297–309 (pp.303–4).

26. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, p.1.

27. Milica Bakić-Hayden, ‘Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia’, Slavic Review, Vol.54, No.4 (1995), pp.917–31 (p. 917).

28. Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion’, p.484

29. Bakić-Hayden, ‘Nesting Orientalisms’, p.930.

30. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, p.15.

31. Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion’, p.478.

32. Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion, p.479; Bakić-Hayden, ‘Nesting Orientalisms, pp.918, 922–31; Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, p.15.

33. Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion’, p.479.

34. Philip Crang, Claire Dwyer and Peter Jackson, ‘Transnationalism and the Spaces of Commodity Culture’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol.27, No.4 (2003), pp.438–56 (p.439).

35. See, for example, Jeffrey Bury, ‘Livelihoods in Transition: Trans-national Gold Mining Operations and Local Change in Cajamarca, Peru’, The Geographical Journal, Vol.170, No.1 (2004), pp.78–91; Robert N. Gwynne, ‘Transnational Capitalism and Local Transformation in Chile’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol.94, No.3 (2003), pp.310–21.

36. See, for example, Ian Cook and Michelle Harrison, ‘Cross-over Food: Rematerializing Postcolonial Geographies’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol.28 (2003), pp.296–317; Crang et al., ‘Transnationalism and the Spaces of Commodity Culture’; Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo and Patricia Landolt, ‘The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol.22, No.2 (1999), pp.217–37.

37. See Crang et al., ‘Transnationalism and the Spaces of Commodity Culture’.

38. David Ley, ‘Transnational Spaces and Everyday Lives’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series), Vol.29 (2004), pp.151–64.

39. See Flynn, Migrant Resettlement, p.29; Caroline Nagel, ‘Geopolitics By Another Name: Immigration and the Politics of Assimilation’, Political Geography, Vol.20, No.2 (2002), pp.971–87 (p.981); Osten Wahlbeck, ‘The Concept of Diaspora as an Analytical Tool in the Study of Refugee Communities’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol.28, No.2 (2002), pp.221–38 (pp.232–3).

40. See also Bridger and Pine (eds.), Surviving Post-socialism, p.8, and Kandyioti, ‘How Far Do Analyses of Postsocialism Travel?’ p.254.

41. See Humphrey ‘Introduction: Does the Category “Postsocialist” Still Make Sense?’, p.15, and Verdery, ‘Introduction: Whither Postsocialism’, pp.18–19; also the contributions by Kay and Kostenko, and by Pilkington, in the present collection.

42. See also Crang et al., ‘Transnationalism and the Spaces of Commodity Culture’, pp. 442–3.

43. See Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, p.368.

44. Birgit Meyer and Peter Geschiere, ‘Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure: Introduction’, in Birgit Meyer and Peter Geschiere (eds.), Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999), pp.1–15, cited in Crang et al., ‘Transnationalism and the Spaces of Commodity Culture’, p.439.

45. See, for example, Ron Martin, ‘Geography and Public Policy: The Case of the Missing Agenda’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol.25, No.2 (2001), pp.189–210; Jane Pollard, Nick Henry, John Bryson and Peter Daniels, ‘Shades of Grey? Geographers and Policy’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series), Vol.25, (2000), pp.243–8; Julie Hemment, ‘Strategizing Gender and Development: Action Research and Ethnographic Responsibility in the Russian Provinces’, in Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias (eds), Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), pp.313–34.

46. See Fagan's contribution, below.

47. Doreen Massey, ‘Editorial: Practising Political Relevance’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series), Vol.25 (2000), pp.131–3 (p.133).

48. Ibid. (original emphasis).

49. Martin, ‘Geography and Public Policy’, p.194.

50. See, for example, Michael Bradshaw and Alison Stenning, ‘Introduction: Transformation and Development’, in Michael Bradshaw and Alison Stenning (eds.), East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union: The Post-socialist States (Harlow: Pearson, 2004), pp.1–32; Kuus, ‘Europe's Eastern Expansion’, p.473; Verdery, ‘Introduction: Whither Postsocialism?’, p.16.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Moya Flynn

Moya Flynn is a lecturer in the Department of Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow. Her current research concerns the situation of Russian-speaking communities resident in Central Asia, primarily Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Jonathan Oldfield

Jonathan Oldfield is a lecturer in the human geography of post-socialist states in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and an associate member of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at that university. He is working on an ESRC-funded project exploring Russian understandings of sustainable development and their historical antecedents.