Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article analyzes efforts by Soviet and present-day scientists in Russia to "rationalize" and ultimately automate the diagnostic techniques of Tibetan medicine. It tracks the institutional and conceptual histories of designing a pulse diagnostic system, a project that began in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. It has recently been re-enlivened in Buryatia, an ethnic minority region in Southeastern Siberia, in efforts to mobilize indigenous medical practices in response to local and national public health concerns. I focus on the translational ideologies that informed efforts to develop the pulsometer as a medical imaging technology, and analyze obstacles to these efforts found at the core of the device. Scientists working on the pulsometer have systematically tried to discern whether their measurements indicate sustained bodily pathologies, or instead reflect only technological white noise, and they still recruit and rely on the embodied expertise of practitioners of Tibetan medicine to validate their findings. In so doing they reaffirm claims that Tibetan medicine in Buryatia is inextricable from the forms of knowledge and practice that their projects work to standardize. I show how the apparent failures at perfect mechanization have made the pulsometer a surprisingly productive site for creating new kinds of expert communities and forms of knowledge making.

1. Encountering a forgotten people, experiencing social change -- 2. The (un-) making of a socialist "Model community" : Heterogeneous appropriations of the past -- 3. Binding up the "Loose sand" : The rise and fall of collectivism -- 4. Building up modernity : The spatial representations of state power -- 5. Negotiating subalternity : "Model proletarians" or "Society people"? -- 6. Facing up to the postsocialist future : Public amnesia and multiple modernities -- 7. Conclusion : Experiencing an ideology that truncates time and space -- 8. Epilogue : Revisiting cucumber lane in 2008.

In this article, through a critical reading of the published diaries written by gay 'patients' who received aversion therapy in south China in the 1990s, I examine how the transformation of subjectivities from gay to straight was made possible by such 'self-technologizing' practices as writing and communication. I also consider the centrality of the body and affect in the process of subject (trans)formation, and ask how a new, coherent and authentic 'self' was fabricated through bodily and affective experiences. This discussion not only reveals the social construction of the self as central to China's postsocialist governmentality, but also the central role that gender and sexuality play in processes of self-formation.

In this article, through a critical reading of the published diaries written by gay 'patients' who received aversion therapy in south China in the 1990s, I examine how the transformation of subjectivities from gay to straight was made possible by such 'self-technologising' practices as writing and communication. I also consider the centrality of the body and affect in the process of subject (trans)formation, and ask how a new, coherent and authentic 'self' was fabricated through bodily and affective experiences. This discussion not only reveals the social construction of the self as central to China's postsocialist governmentality, but also the central role that gender and sexuality play in processes of self-formation.

Postsocialist urban development is partially characterised by housing deterioration and the perpetual overrepresentation of Romanian Roma in substandard dwellings. These phenomena are particularly noticeable in the margins of larger Romanian cities. Many poor Romanians found, in urban peripheries, a last resort during a period of economic crisis and housing shortages. In the meantime, public policy and urban planning have focused on maintaining 'collective order' and accommodating the wishes of the 'decently' housed residents of the city. This is certainly the case in Bucharest, where squatters and homeless people have been expelled from central districts and where the same privileged districts receive substantially more attention. This collective order is apparently deemed more important than the needs of marginalised groups in Romanian society. This article examines how urban marginality is addressed at the municipal level and how 'parsimonious' public intervention in poor residential areas is justified. In doing so, I highlight the roles of postsocialist devolution, inadequate use of EU and national funds, and reviving racialisation in reproducing housing poverty.

AbstractThis paper examines the healing practice ofstrava, which translates as "great fear." With a long oral history in Bosnia, it has become particularly popular since the end of socialism and the 1990s war. This postsocialist therapy, informed by gifting dispositions, is a bustling business that intervenes into disorders that people commonly relate to the new economy.Stravatreatment presupposes distance, since the therapist rarely touches the bodies at hand, and concerned intimates commonly arranged interventions in a patient's absence. Inspired by Bruno Latour's advice to expand our notion of agency in directions indicated by those we study, I depart from the earlier accounts ofstravaas a traditional and symbolic folk practice. Instead, I explore its claims to efficacy in competition with psycho-pharmaceutical treatments of anxiety and depression in contemporary Bosnia. Of particular interest is a commonplace therapeutic blunder—the accidental mixing of "fears" water and Coke, which therapists shrug off as inconsequential. This points to a model of action best explored outside the pragmatics of science studies, employing insights gained from a rereading of Mauss', Tylor's, and Frazer's classic theories of sympathetic magic. I examine what makesstravawater—carefully prepared with prayers and handled by the therapist's and patient's wishing breaths—ritually potent, while Coke remains ineffectual. I show that this therapy is the domain of wishing, which does not interrupt a sphere of new political economy, but nevertheless intervenes in the bodies that suffer from it, and effectively redraws the limits of the social.

Focusing on youth, family, work, and consumption, Ambiguous Transitions analyzes the interplay between gender and citizenship postwar Romania. By juxtaposing official sources with oral histories and socialist policies with everyday practices, Jill Massino illuminates the gendered dimensions of socialist modernization and its complex effects on women's roles, relationships, and identities. Analyzing women as subjects and agents, the book examines how they negotiated the challenges that arose as Romanian society modernized, even as it clung to traditional ideas about gender. Massino concludes by exploring the ambiguities of postsocialism, highlighting how the legacies of the past have shaped politics and women's lived experiences since 1989

Privatization was one of the key mechanisms in the transformation from planned to market economies in the former Eastern Bloc following the collapse of communist regimes. Although this radical change in ownership structures is most often understood as belonging to the sphere of the economy, it also profoundly affected society and shared values. As historians are increasingly turning to the post-1989 period in Central and Eastern Europe, this introduction and special issue argue that economic and political history alone are not sufficient to investigate the process of privatization; approaches from social and cultural history are also necessary. Transformation, and privatization in particular, was the result of complex interactions between the economic policies of nation-states, the actions of transnational organizations and private corporations, the development of global capitalism, but also of local traditions, cultural stereotypes and representations, and the transformation of institutions other than political and economic ones. By taking into account this complex nexus of factors, we argue, historical research can bring a new quality to the existing social science work on postsocialist privatization and economic transformation more generally. ; This publication was created with support for the long-term conceptual development of the research organization Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Development of Research Organization (RVO) number 68378114

In the article the experience of post-socialist transformation in the Slovak Republic after the Velvet Revolution and gaining of independence after the collapse of Czechoslovakia in 1993 was examined. The process of reforming of the society and state, the transition from the communist to the western model of economy, the role of public sector on the path to EU and NATO accession were investigated. It was defined that the reforming of authorities, society and the state, which had already begun in the common state of Czechs and Slovaks under the leadership of V. Havel in 1990-1992, had a great value for the formation of independent Slovakia, because, despite some differences, the European destination became a key point which determined the process of accelerated modernization and the transition from planned socialism to a free market relation. It was determined that the «peaceful divorce» with Czech Republic had become one of the most important steps on the way for successful European integration of Slovakia. The key role of civil society in the transforming of Slovak state and overcoming the negative consequences of the dominance of communist ideology on the path of European and Euro Atlantic integration was represented. The public sector has become a driving force that guided Slovak society towards accelerated modernization in 1998-2006. It was shown the process of struggle of the European choice supporters with pro-Russian policy of V. Meciar, whose period should be generally considered as a «Slovak kuchmism». The final victory of pro-European forces in the 1998 elections led to the acceleration of modernization processes in Slovakia, implementation of required changes in society and state managing necessary for EU and NATO accession. ; У статті розглянуто досвід постсоціалістичної трансформації у Словацькій Республіці після Оксамитової революції та здобуття незалежності внаслідок розпаду Чехословаччини у 1993р. Досліджено процес реформування суспільства і держави, перехід від комуністичної до західної моделі господарювання, роль громадського сектору на шляху до вступу у ЄС та НАТО. Визначено, що реформування влади, суспільства і держави, започатковані ще в спільній державі чехів і словаків під проводом В.Гавела у 1990-1992рр., мали важливе значення для формування і подальшого становлення незалежної Словаччини, адже, не зважаючи на певні відмінності, європейський вектор був ключовим фактором, який визначив прискорену модернізацію і перехід від планового соціалізму до вільного ринку. Вказано, що «мирне розлучення» з Чехією стало одним з найвагоміших кроків на шляху успішної європейської інтеграції Словаччини. Представлено ключову роль громадянського суспільства у процесі трансформації словацької держави, подоланні негативних наслідків домінування комуністичної ідеології на шляху європейської та євроатлантичної інтеграції. Громадський сектор став тією рушійною силою, який спрямував словацьке суспільство шляхом прискореної модернізації в період 1998-2006рр. Показано процес боротьби прихильників європейського вибору з проросійською політикою В.Мечіара, період правління якого слід охарактеризувати як «словацький кучмізм». Перемога проєвропейських сил у 1998р. сприяла прискоренню модернізаційних процесів у Словаччині, проведенню необхідних для вступу до ЄС та НАТО змін у суспільстві та державному будівництві.

After the fall of the state socialist regime and the end of martial law in 1989, Polish society experienced both a sense of relief from the tyranny of Soviet control and an expectation that democracy would bring freedom. After this initial wave of enthusiasm, however, political forces that had lain concealed during the state socialist era began to emerge and establish a new religious-nationalist orthodoxy. While Solidarity garnered most of the credit for democratization in Poland, it had worked quietly with the Catholic Church, to which a large majority of Poles at least nominally adhered. As

Civil Society Revisited; Contents; List of Figures and Tables; Preface; Introduction. Rethinking Polish Civil Society; Part I. Civil Society in Contemporary Poland; Chapter 1. Civil Society in Postcommunist Europe; Chapter 2. (Mis)understanding Social Activism in Poland; Chapter 3. Rethinking Civic Privatism in a Postsocialist Context; Chapter 4. Defining In/Defining Out; Part II. (De)legitimization of Civic Activism; Chapter 5. When Parents Become Activists; Chapter 6. On the Disappearing Mother; Chapter 7. Marginalizing Discourses and Activists' Strategies in Collective Identity Formation.

Abstract
In Romania, as elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the collapse of communism triggered a testimonial drive that shifted from early concerns with victimhood, justice, and retribution to seemingly apolitical revivals of everyday life under socialism. Drawing on a range of memoirs of socialist childhood published over the last decade by an aspiring generation of Romanian writers, this article examines the role of public intellectuals in articulating hegemonic representations of the socialist past. To understand both the enduring power and limits of such representations, the author argues that published recollections should not be read only for their (competing) perspectives on the past, but also for the sociopolitical effects they have in the transitional present, where they facilitate the socialization of emerging writers into the ethos of the postsocialist intelligentsia. Exploring the tenuous relationship between dominant intellectual discourses and social memory in postsocialist Romania, this article aims to throw light on the tensions at the heart of broader processes of democratization, diversification and commodification of social memory in Eastern Europe.