Networked poverty in rural Russia

Abstract

This article attempts to apply major ideas developed in Anglo-American ‘network analysis’ to enlarge geographical constructions of the rural ‘problematic’ in Russia. It interrogates complex understandings of ‘poor people’ via a study of social networks in two villages in Central European Russia, focusing on connections between different actors embedded in social contexts in the countryside, different forms of associations between rural people, and the ways in which specific forms of their interrelations affect poverty. In so doing, the article attempts to reconnect different positions of rural people in Russia and different transitory aspects of ‘poor’ identities (i.e. of people in poverty), as well as to broaden understanding of differentiated experiences of rural poverty.

Notes

¹ Butyrki in Russian means a house or group of houses standing off at a distance, separate from the other part of the village.

²Second (urban) homeowners who often take up residence in their rural house.

³For a detailed overview see Anderson and Bell (2003).

⁴It is therefore different from the deployment of network concepts in earlier network studies where it was considered as a partial description of social structure (Radcliffe-Brown 1940; Merton 1957; Holland & Leinhardt 1975; Wasserman & Faust 1989). Different sorts of relationships are constructed within networks; ties are not simply added up, as they are different and they provide inconsistent presentations of the self even to the same author. Apart from people, roles, status and expectations are linked to social networks, so that an actual person becomes an ‘outcome’, not a source, of network activity. This particular understanding of the dynamism and heterogeneity of links makes network analysis a particularly suitable tool for exploring the ways in which multiple, messy and complex rural poverty is produced.

⁵See Vinogradsky (2002) for a critique of this approach.

⁶It is important to stress that this study, which focuses on studying the role of social networks in the production of poverty in particular localities, has specific limitations. A broader understanding of networks in social science (Callon 1986, 1991; Latour 1987, 1991; Murdoch 1998; Whatmore 1999) describes them as heterogeneous and hybrid (not only human) entities transcending different spaces. This article's main focus on social links is justified on methodological grounds as it provides an easy entry point for a heterogeneous study of poverty. The scope of this article does not allow space for analysis of moral, cultural and policy networks in the production of poverty. It is important to stress that in this study network techniques are adopted to work in socially bounded places. The direct interest of this article is concentrated on locally bounded social networks, which in the case of ‘lay’ networks are quite close to the boundaries of local communities (but see reservations with regards to wider farm-centred networks later in this article).

⁷Following Wright (1992), I see community as an organisational structure situated between the outer boundaries of the private space of the household and the edge of the rural settlement, where ‘community’ is transformed into the ‘state’.

⁸The government authorities in Russia employed discursive tactics which put the blame for poverty on its victims. In this case, specific codes of behaviour were established (based on the grounds of work ethic, gender and ethnicity) which were deemed inappropriate and which were used to justify the reduction of benefit payments to specific needy people. Social welfare claimants, who did not demonstrate self-reliance, hard work and self-achievement, were therefore considered as ‘non-deserving’ poor.

⁹Although the idea was to relieve local authorities of the burden of maintaining rural infrastructure and therefore encourage local development, the move has essentially constrained any rural development initiatives (Vlasov 2000). See also White (2000) on socio-economic developments at the sub-regional level.

¹⁰On the destabilisation of the links between femininity and poverty, see Yaroshenko (2002, 2004); on the politics of disentangling old age and poverty, see Rimashevskaya (2002); and on disability see Steinberg (1996).

¹¹In Russia, Rodionova (1998) argues, the idea behind rural development initiatives is to help people to avoid ‘outrageous poverty’. If that is achieved, local authorities then tend to concentrate on other projects.

¹²In this context, rural administrations (local authorities) are treated as simply ‘bureaucratic institutions that issue documents, different confirmation certificates and are responsible for the distribution of commodities in short supply’ (Yastrebinskaya 1999, p. 189).

¹³In the Soviet time, collective farms often resorted to the help of personal farms when poor milk yields did not allow them to fulfil the state orders and they mobilised pensioners without payment during harvesting campaigns. Nowadays, collective farms support their members (by providing credits, foodstuffs, and by preventing significant redundancies) in exchange for social stability (Rodionova 1998).

¹⁴This is not true, however, for Igor Stroev, whose case was used as an illustration in the beginning.

¹⁵‘Butyl'tsy’ in this case is linked to the Russian word for ‘bottle’[of vodka]. The locals give this nickname to these people because they work for vodka.

¹⁶As established in theoretical discussion, this knowledge affects social inclusion and differentiation.

¹⁷See, for example, the case of the butyl'tsy in Khlopovo, who are supported by the community despite them being excluded from the formal institutional and work-centred networks.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sergei Shubin

The author would like to thank Terry Cox, John Horton, Nick Spedding and the anonymous referees whose comments greatly helped him in revising this paper.