Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World

Michael Burawoy

doi:10.5771/9780585080550

Summary

The ethnographies collected here offer a surprising and compelling picture of change in Russia and Eastern Europe found in no other book to date. Looking at the everyday processes by which individuals and groups forge new lives, the authors challenge the idea that we can understand this transformation by the predictable models_whether capitalism, post-socialism, modernity, or postmodernity. The collection brings together a wide-ranging group of authors from sociology, anthropology, and political science to reveal the complex relationships that still exist between the former socialist world and the world today. Through evocative ethnographic research and writing, they bring to light the unintended consequences of change and show how the 'slates' of the past enter the present not as legacies_but as novel adaptations. Often what appear as 'restorations' of patterns familiar from socialism are something quite different: direct responses to the new market initiatives. By showing the unexpected ways in which these new patterns are emerging, this book charts a new and important course for the study of post-socialist transition.

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2000
Copyright Year: 2000
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8476-9042-8
ISBN-Online: 978-0-585-08055-0
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 323
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction Michael Burawoy and Katherine Verdery No access Pages 1 - 18
1 Traders, "Disorder," and Citizenship Regimes in Provincial Russia Caroline Humphrey No access Pages 19 - 52
2 Fuzzy Property: Rights, Power, and Identity in Transylvania's Decollectivization Katherine Verdery No access Pages 53 - 82
3 Barter of the Bankrupt: The Politics of Demonetization in Russia's Federal State David Woodruff No access Pages 83 - 124
4 Slick Salesmen and Simple People: Negotiated Capitalism in a Privatized Polish Firm Elizabeth Dunn No access Pages 125 - 150
5 "But We Are Still Mothers": Gender, the State, and the Construction of Need in Postsocialist Hungary Lynne Haney No access Pages 151 - 188
6 Polish Peasants in the "Valley of Transition": Responses to Postsocialist Reforms Slawomira Zbierski-Salameh No access Pages 189 - 222
7 Deconstructing Socialism in Bulgaria Gerald W. Creed No access Pages 223 - 244
8 Redefining the Collective: Russian Mineworkers inTransition Sarah Ashwin No access Pages 245 - 272
9 Portable Worlds: On the Limits of Replication in the Czech and Slovak Republics Andrew Lass No access Pages 273 - 300
10 Afterword Michael Burawoy No access Pages 301 - 312
Index No access Pages 313 - 320
About the Contributors No access Pages 321 - 323