Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet UnionDaphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, Martha Lampland The dominant focus in transition studies to date has been on economic and political factors--analyses generally conducted at the national or international level. The essays in Altering States instead bring us a closer look at what has been happening in everyday life in urban contexts in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Armenia, and Russia. The contributors to the volume--all anthropologists--use ethnographic methods to make visible problems and challenges that have until now been obscured. From synagogue restoration in Eastern Europe to gay tourism in Prague to the politics of rock music in Hungary, specific, local topics lead the authors to confront difficult questions of individual agency and discursive practices in the move away from socialism. Broader themes touched on include race and ethnicity, sexuality and postcoloniality, the politics of environmental restoration, and memory and remembrance in the politics of history. Altering States will fill an important gap in the study of transition in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It will appeal to anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists and will be accessible to undergraduate and graduate students alike. Daphne Berdahl is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota. Matti Bunzl is Aaron and Robin Fischer Professor of Jewish Culture and Society and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Martha Lampland is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California at San Diego. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | |
An Anthropology of Postsocialism | 1 |
The Moscow Metro | 14 |
On Synagogue Restoration in Eastern Europe | 40 |
Gay Male Sex Tourism and the Neocolonial Invention of an Embodied Border | 70 |
Reconstructing Environment and Memory in Postsocialist SaxonyAnhalt | 96 |
Daily Life History and Identity during Armenias Transition to Independence 19911994 | 114 |
Memory History and Remembrance Work in Dresden | 139 |
AntiPolitics of Arts Autonomy and Transition in Hungary | 158 |
Openings and Closings in PostSoviet Siberia | 181 |
Afterword | 209 |
| 219 | |
Contributors | 241 |
| 243 | |
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anthropology Armenian Austrian gay male autonomy Bitterfeld Bohlman border Budapest Bunzl cassettes Central colonial constituted construction context countercultural crisis cultural Czech demodernization depth discourse Dohány Street Synagogue dusha East German Eastern Europe Eastern European economic embodied environment essay ethnographic everyday former gay male sex groups Hassidic Herr Beck Hungarian Hungary ideology individual industrial inside Jewish music Jews Jugendweihe landscape living male sex tourists memory ment metaphor Mikulov modern Moscow metro museum musicians narratives national identity neocolonial Omsk Pajor's pansexuality past Pesmen political post-Soviet postsocialist practices Prague experience propiska Reformed Bauhaus region relations rock Romania Russian soul same-sex sexual Saxony-Anhalt sex tourists social socialist society sociosexual Sopron Soviet Union space specific station structure synagogue restoration Szemere things tion tradition transformation transition tropes underground urban Verdery Víg village voice West Western women Yerevan УЛ