Theorizing transition in postcommunist societies continued

1
Theorizing transition in post-communist societies
(continued)

• 6.10.2004

2
Differences between countries

• CEE and Baltics
• rather quick consolidation of democracy
• Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan
• Dictatorships
• Ukraine, Tajikistan, Bulgaria, Moldova
• mixed cases, conflictual and violent.
• Russia
• Unclear case

3
Success of Post-Communist Reforms

• General types of explanations
• Actor-centered
• Structural
• 1. Cultural arguments
• Eg. religion
• Huntington, Fukuyama, Eckstein
• Western Christianity (Protestant/Catholic)
• vs Eastern Christianity (Orthodox)
• vs Muslim

4
Success of Post-Communist Reforms

• 2. Politico-historical arguments
• a) previous experience with democracy
• CEE and Baltic vs CIS
• b) history of statehood/ degree of
  nationbuilding
• CEE and Baltic vs CIS
• Imperial rule - Russia, Austro-Hungarian empire,
  etc
• c) Length of Soviet domination
• CIS vs Baltic states vs CEE
• d) Communism from within or externally imposed?
• Externally imposed easier to distance?
• From within more legitimate?

5
Success of Post-Communist Reforms

• 3. Geographical arguments
• Influence of "Western partners and neighbors"
• Cultural influence
• Economic influence
• 4. Institutional and Policy Choices
• a) Presidential vs Parliamentary systems
• Parliamentary more democratic than presidential?
• Presidential Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and all
  CIS
• Parliamentary Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia,
  Latvia

6
Success of Post-Communist Reforms

• b) Shock Therapy vs Gradual Reform
• Shock therapy works better than gradual reform?
• CEE vs CIS
• Estonia vs Lithuania
• c) Collective identity based on Ethnos vs Demos
• ethnos
• blood ties and ethnic affiliation
• demos
• universal territorial citizenship.
• for successful democratization demos must
  prevail?
• Balkans vs Hungary

7
Success of Post-Communist Reforms

• 5. Degree of elite turnover
• Russia 75 of elite former nomenklatura

8
Theorizing transition conclusion

• transition
• a concept to be approached with suspicion
• a cultural construct of the "West"
• Point of departure
• Many socialisms
• Trajectory of change
• Not unilinear
• Not exclusive
• Continuities
• Destination?
• Not a rite of passage
• Only transition from? (Verdery) 

9
Anthropology in communist and post-communist
context
10
Discussion topics

• EE/fSU as an ethnographic region
• EE/fSU anthropology
• Pre-communist era
• 18th century
• 19th century
• Communist era
• Local / Western anthropology
• Post-communist era
• new role of anthropology
• new research topics

11
Readings

• Hann, Chris 1994. After Communism Reflections on
  East European Anthropology and the Transition.
  Social Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 229-249.
• Wolfe, Thomas C. 2000. Cultures and Communities
  in the Anthropology of Eastern Europe and the
  Former Soviet Union. Annual Review of
  Anthropology, Vol. 29, pp. 195-216

12
EE/fSU as an ethnographic region

• Ethnographic generalizations
• Post-communist societies
• Post-socialist societies
• Post-Soviet societies
• EEfSU
• Verdery
• Post-commumist studies post-colonial studies

13
EE/fSU as an ethnographic region

• culture area in anthropology
• Clark Wissler and Alfred Kroeber
• Regional tradition in ethnographic writing
• Richard Fardon (1990)
• Localizing Strategies Regional Traditions of
  Ethnographic Writing
• a set of assumptions
• "relevant research strategies"
• Eg. African studies
• classical British lineage theory
• Radcliffe-Brown, Fortes, Evans-Pritchard etc.
• Eg. Melanesian studies
• exchange theory
• Malinowski, Mauss, Strathern etc.

14
EE/fSU as an ethnographic region

• Ambivalence of regional traditions
• Eg. Melanesia tradition
• Has enabled the study of exchange
• Trobrianders
• gt complexity also in "primitive" system of
  money-less exchange
• Has restricted focus on other problems
• Anthropology EE and fSU
• a new "regional tradition in making (Nielsen)
• Soviet studies gt post-Soviet studies
• Communism gt Post-communism / transitology

15
EE/fSU as an ethnographic region

• Problems
• Post-communist world
• a misnomer
• Culturally heterogeneous region
• cultures of wine, of beer and of vodka
• Only common feature a few decades of Soviet
  rule
• gt politically, not culturally or geographically
  defined
• gt reproduces power of the Soviet state
• Other examples
• Eg. Mediterranean anthropology

16
EE/fSU anthropology in brief

• Three phases
• 1) Pre-Marxist phase
• Colonization and expedition (18th c)
• Institutionalization of the discipline (19th c)
• 2) Marxist phase
• Leninist era
• Stalinist era
• 1950s-1980s
• 3) Post-Marxist phase
• Other influences
• Western anthropologists working in the region
• Western anthropologists with Eastern European
  roots
• Boas, Malinowski, Polanyi, Roheim, Nadel, Gellner

17
18th century

• Ethnographically-oriented travel writing
• extensive colonization of Siberia by Russia
• Expeditions to Siberia
• The Great Northern Expedition (1733-43)
• History of Siberia (G. Miller)
• the first linguistic classification of the
  Siberian population
• Russian Academy of Sciences expedition (1768-74)
• Description of all Peoples Living in the Russian
  State (I. Georgi)
• Round-the-world naval expeditions
• I. Kruzenstern (Pacific islands)
• Langsdorf (Brazil)
• Bichurin (China)
• Veniaminov and Wrangel (Aleutian Islands and
  Alaska)

18
19th century

• ethnography in service of national ambitions
• Institutionalization
• ethnographic journals and museums
• learned societies
• Russian Geographical Society in Saint Petersburg
  (1845)
• an ethnographic division
• studies of Central Asia, Siberia and the Far
  East.
• Development of theory and method
• Evolutionism (1880s)
• historical reconstruction
• of archaeological, physical anthropological and
  ethnographic material
• Fieldwork
• Lev Shternberg (1861-1927)
• Exiled in Siberia

19
19th century

• N. Miklukho-Maklai (1846-88)
• first European to work in Oceania and Australia
• between 1870 and 1880
• Analysed by
• Stocking (1991)
• Peter Lawrence Road Belong Cargo (1964)
• in PNG - taken for an ancestor
• anti-czarist activities
• Exiled to Siberia
• USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Ethnography
  
• named after him

20
Early 20th century

• Main focus
• Studies of peasantry
• historical formation
• Inequality of households
• gt impact on economic anthropology
• Chayanov vs Lenin
• Inequality between households
• contrasting interpretations

21
Early 20th century

• Chayanovs rule
• the amont of time a household member works is
  proportional to his/her households dependency
  ratio (c/w)
• c/w the ratio of household consumers to workers
• Inter-household inequality due to
• demographic composition
• developmental cycle of the domestic group
• Impact on Marshall Sahlins
• domestic mode of production

22
Early 20th century

• Lenin
• Inter-household inequality due to
• class polarization
• interested in
• the Siberian minorities
• nationalities question
• social evolution
• Engels The Origin of the Family, Private
  Property and the State (1884)
• gt Morgan (Ancient Society, 1864)

23
Stalinist era

• Intellectual isolation
• Soviet intellectuals cut off from the
  international community
• Intellectual repression
• Ethnology as a "bourgeois science
• Malinowskian functionalism - rejected historicism
  
• Dept. of Ethnology in Moscow closed
• Sociology, psychology suppressed
• Purges
• many ethnologists killed or deported
• Studies of prehistoric forms of social
  organization

24
1950s to 1970s

• Revival of the discipline
• political gt ideological gt intellectual monism
• determined the character of theoretical
  discussion
• Canonical texts
• Certain liberalization in late 1960s
• Psychology and sociology
•  
• Theoretical basis
• Marxism-Leninism
• Historicism
• basic principle of the Marxist method
• revealing the phenomenons origin and development
  
• class struggle as the major force of historical
  changes 

25
1950s to 1970s

• Anthropology gt a branch of history
• 'A historical science, studying peoples and their
  way of life and culture' (Tokarev 1968).
• Ethnography (Etnografia) taught in history
  faculties

26
1950s to 1970s

• Main research topics
• Russia
• Evolution
• Prehistoric societies
• Ethnogenesis
• anthropology the study of ethnic processes
• Baltics
• Völkerkunde
• Studies of folklore and material culture (safe
  topics)
• Other topics
• Biological/physical anthropology
• Race studies

27
1950s to 1970s

•  Ethnographic reporting as a propaganda tool
• Studies in rural areas
• on progress and modernization
• on benefits from the Soviet state
•  
• Studies outside the SU
• D. Olderogge and I. Potekhin in Africa
• N. Cheboksarov, R. Its, and M. Krukov in China
• A. Efimov and Y. Averkieva in America

28
1950s to 1970s

• Intellectual stagnation
• Yulia Petrova-Averkieva
• grand old lady" of Soviet ethnography
• editor-inchief of Sovetskaya Etnografiya
• theoretical positions frozen at the level of the
  late 1940s
• Primordial matriarchy
• criticism of American anthropology
• doctoral student of Boas

29
1950s to 1970s

• primordialist theory of ethnos
• Bromlei, Gumilev (1980s)
• roots Leninist theory of the national question,
• ethnos
• Basic form of social organization at all times
• Tribe gt nationality gt nation
• "Soviet man"
• sovetskij tshelovek Homo sovieticus
• Lenin
• inevitable result of education
• Stalin
• using massive violence
• Brezhnev
• an actual reality

30
Western interest in the region

• General
• Not an anthropological hot spot
• Marginal impact on anthropological theory
• Till 1980s
• Regional restrictions
• Albania (before WWII)
• Romania (esp. Transylvania)
• Ceausescus independent foreign policy
• Hungary
• Western Balkans
• Very few
• Mostly Americans
• Different political leanings
• Selected topics
• Mostly rural themes

31
Soviet Studies in the US

• Proliferation in 1950s
• refugees working in American universities
• foreign policy interests during the Cold War
• gt skewed intellectual agenda toward policy
  studies
• Cooperation with intelligence agencies
• specialized journals
• Slavic Review (1945)
• The Russian Review (1941)
• Problems of Communism (1952)
•  
• Decline in the 1960s and 70s
• Increase in the 1980s

32
Western interest in the region Pre-WWII

• Franz Boas
• Russo-American expedition
• indigenous peoples around the Bering Straits
• Philip Mosely
• trained with Malinowski.
• Comparative studies of zadruga (1930s)
• Albania, Bulgana, Romania, and Yugoslavia
• Ruth Benedict
• References to Romanian national character
• Mead Metraux
• The Study of Culture at a Distance (1953)
• Geza Roheim
• on Hungarian values and religious ideology

33
Western interest in the region 1950s-1980s

• 1960s-70s
• mostly Americans
• Cole, Halpern, Beck, Randall, Kideckel
• economic development, collective farms
• McArthur
• German minority in Transylvania
• Kligman
• Ritual
• Studies East European Communities Abroad
• Degh on Hungarian-Canadian community
• Patterson on Romanian-Canadian community
• Halley on Croatians and Serbians in Chicago

34
Western interest in the region 1950s-1980s

•  1970s-80s
• Growing British interest
• Soviet works "discovered" by Ernest Gellner
• a meeting between Soviet and Western scholars in
  1976
• Soviet and Western Anthropology (1980)
• Hann
• Community studies in Hungary and Poland
• Humphrey
• Collective farm in Siberia

35
Western interest in the region 1950s-1980s

• Adjustment to socialism
• Different conclusions
• Kideckel (Romania) / Lampland (Hungary)
• socialism gt people self-centered, distrustful,
  and apathetic
• opposite of the socialist propaganda
• Creed (Bulgaria)
• socialism gt overall improvement in the quality
  of villagers' lives
• villagers adjusted socialism to their own
  requirements and needs
• Hann (Hungary, Poland),
• socialism gt improved the quality of peasant and
  rural life

36
Western interest in the region 1950s-1980s

• Katherine Verdry
• a model of "socialist society" (1996)
• based on
• the work of Hungarian and Romanian scholars
• "shortage economies (Kornai 1980)
• "supply-constrained"
• systemic centrality of the "second economy"
• Critique
• Hann
• Romania not a representative case
• generic anthropological model of socialism not
  possible
• Nielsen

37
Western interest in the region after 1989

• Social scientific interest exploded
• New topics
• Privatization
• decollectivization
• market economy
• democratization
• civil society
• nationalism
•  
• Transitology
• macrolevel perspectives
• "saturated in ideological significance" (Verdery)
• uninterested in the voices of ordinary people

38
Anthropology of post-communism

• New critical role for anthropology
• To challenge other approaches and policies
• Model of totalitarianism
• Socialist states were weak (Verdery 1991,96)
• Macro-level analyses
• Michael Herzfeld (1997) ethnographic attention
  to detail, quickly ... dismissed as mere
  anecdote by many disciplines, reveals what moves
  people to action"

39
Anthropology of post-communism

• Policies
• Based on transfer of Western models
• overlook institutional contexts
• critiques of the practical implementation of
  these programmes
• Eg. Wedel on aid
• outcomes can be unpredictable and
  counterproductive
• Hann (Hungary)
• citizenship' rights have diminished
• Verdery (Romania)
• elasticity of land in privatization
• Gal, Kligman, Pine
• negative implications for women

40
Anthropology of post-communism

• Stephanie Platz
• transition as "demodernization"
• deindustrialization in Armenia due to
• paralysis of the urban and industrial
  infrastructure
• energy crisis
• "shock therapy"
• Not a cure of all the evils of the communist"
  system
• continuities between socialist and postsocialist
  societies
• updated studies
• Humphrey on Buryatia
• Karl Marx Collective Economy, Society and
  Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm (1983)
• Marx Went Away - But Karl Stayed Behind (1998)

41
Anthropology of post-communism

• New topics
• themes related to agriculture and other forms of
  work recede
• memory and the uses and burdens of the past
• Vieda Skultans on KGB archives
• ethnic and national conflicts
• cultural meanings and politics of consumption
• New elites
• gender and sex
• Matti Bunzl
• gay male sex tourism,
• Austrian men searching for the "Prague
  experience"
• gt creation of colonized and colonizing
  subjectivities
• gt metaphor for unequal power relations between
  "East" and "West"

42
Anthropology of post-communism

• Changing identities
• Anna Szemere
• underground rock musicians in Hungary
• dissident art under communism
• in opposition to the socialist state
• Post-communist condition
• gt profound crisis of identity
• gt religious conversion
• Cultural revival
• Neo-shamanism in urban and rural Siberia

43
Anthropology of post-communism

• Metaphors and symbols
• Philip Bohlman
• Restoration of a a Jewish synagogue in Prague
• a symbol of transition
• a metaphor for destruction, exodus, neglect,
  and return
• Alaina Lemon
• cultural and discursive practices in Moscow metro
  
• public transit to talk about transition
• changing landscape of the metro
• a symbol of
• social chaos
• inequalities
• social, political, and economic transition

44
Anthropology of post-communism

• Dale Pesmen
• Study of Russian soul (dusha)
• Omsk - closed Siberian city
• Soviet era vs glasnost
• Closedness vs openness
• Constrain vs threat
• opening the "national soul to foreigners, for
  money."