Suchergebnisse

Increased inequalities around the globe have led social researchers to invent innovative methodologies to study how people subjectively perceive inequality and imagine society. This article presents the development of an arts-informed method, 'drawing of society', applied to a multi-sited ethnography of everyday inequalities in two major post-industrial cities of Russia. It contributes to the debate on lay perceptions of social structure by looking at moral and symbolic signifiers of inequality. Building on multi-sensory data, I argue that workers and professionals tend to imagine Russian society as divided between a small group of the rich and a large group of the poor and as consisting of social classes. Ordinary people self-identify with the poor and perceive their position as being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Depending on their lived experiences, research participants express their sense of inequality through the narrative strategies of compliance, inversion and subversion of power hierarchies.

This article focuses on bodily memory and emotional expressions of the Russian male militaries who participated in the Afghanistan war. The research aims to reveal the axis structure of bodily memory and to analyze the structural elements of emotionality objectified in narrations of the male Afghan veterans. The author reflects the loci of concentrated bodily memory, such as corporal inscriptions and skin writings which are optical, perceptible and indelible. They function as "the truth" about the past imprinted on the male body. The following questions are discussed in the article. How does bodily memory function in male militaries' narrations? What are the results of bodily memory work? What role do emotions play during the process of remembering? What kind of emotions do male veterans express in their narrations? What type of connection is there between bodily memory and emotional expressing? ; L'articolo analizza la memoria del corpo e l'espressione delle emozioni dei militari russi di sesso maschile che parteciparono alla guerra in Afghanistan. La ricerca punta a indagare la struttura basilare della memoria del corpo e ad analizzare gli elementi strutturali di tipo emozionale riscontrabili nelle narrazioni dei veterani di quella guerra. L'Autrice riflette sui luoghi fisici nei quali si concentra la memoria del corpo, quali segni e tatuaggi impressi nel corpo, che sono visibili, percepibili e indelebili. Queste iscrizioni assumono il valore della "verità" sul passato, impressa nel corpo maschile. L'articolo si interroga sulle seguenti questioni: che funzione ha la memoria del corpo nei racconti di guerra maschili? Quali sono gli esiti del lavoro della memoria sul corpo? Quale ruolo giocano le emozioni durante il processo del ricordare?

This article considers the social mobility trajectories for vulnerable employees involved in precarious employment. The authors define two types of justifying involvement in precarity — forced or voluntary choice. Forced choice of precarity is more typical to elderly employees (to Soviet generations). Precarity as a necessity comes as the result of labor market structural transformations, devaluation of certain professions — for example, working-class and engineer jobs — and leads to downward social mobility into the precariat. Most of the interviewed precarious employees of elder generations negatively evaluated their current social standing and were nostalgic about the state of social welfare. Voluntary involvement in precarity is more common among younger employees of post-Soviet generations. Young employees justify their "voluntary" choice of precarious employment by a flexible timetable, an interesting job, opportunities for self-development, a short commute, etc. However, as the interview analysis shows, precarious workers of post-Soviet generations do not make such a choice voluntarily: rather their choice is affected by the operations of social structures. Mobility of young employees within the low-resource networks, which easily allow for finding and swapping precarious jobs, confines them inside the precariat and limits their opportunities for upward social mobility. The authors conclude that precarious employment forms a specific habitus and an individualistic subjectivity among vulnerable employees. Short horizons of planning, perception of precarity as "normal" ("everybody lives like that") and a specific lifestyle with a limited set of social opportunities — these are the key traits of a precarious habitus. This article is based on material from 75 biographical interviews with precarious employees, aged between 23 and 58 years, residing in large industrial centers of Russia — Yekaterinburg and Samara.