Suchergebnisse

Serbia has been facing migration and influx of refugees and internally displaced persons since the 1990s. At the same time, the country went through significant changes in the political and socio-economic regime, planning and urban development practice and urban land management, which had effects on development of housing solutions as well. Serbian planning system is influenced by its path dependency in relation to socialist era and later transitional stages. Moreover, it is directed towards adjusting to market economy and EU perspective, where various international influences were developed during the period of support through programs and projects of international assistance for the socio-economic integration of refugees. Some of these programs are still ongoing. The contribution of this paper is to offer basis for understanding the influences on development of both formal and informal planning instruments for housing solutions for refugees and internally displaced persons from 1990s to 2015, with Serbia being taken as an illustrative case. The nature of housing solutions is examined in relation to different state policies, concepts and planning practices, as well as systemic solutions in legal framework within particular focus on: introduction of different forms of ownership, regulation of norms and standards of planning, new institutional solutions, and treatment of housing as a public interest. Finally, this paper will demonstrate that in a transitional society, legal framework represents a prerequisite but not a guarantee of enforcement, where complexity of its operationalization is closely related to real political and socio-economic context.

The concept of migration culture is sometimes used to suggest that migration became normalised in particular sending locations. It is helpful however to explore the cultural context of migration more thoroughly, investigating norms and beliefs about how to 'do' migration. I analyse why cultures change, and how this links to broader changes in society. In some respects post-2014 Ukrainian migration to Poland and, for example, Polish migration pre-2004 are strikingly similar, for example regarding informal networks, and migration to finance children's higher education. To some extent Ukrainian migration can be labelled 'post-socialist.' I argue however that it is also shaped by the specific 21st century context, such as enhanced opportunities for communication between migrants and potential migrants on social media and in receiving countries, as well as Ukrainians' encounters in Poland with Polish return migrants. Hence Ukrainian mobility discourses and practices have to be studied transnationally, not just locally.

In which ways are environments (post-)socialist and how do they come about? How is the relationship between the built environment, memory, and debates on identity enacted? What are the spatial, material, visual, and aesthetic dimensions of these (post-)socialist enactments or interventions? And how do such (post-)socialist interventions in environments become (re)curated? By addressing these questions, this volume releases 'curation' from its usual museological framing and carries it into urban environments and private life-worlds, from predominantly state-sponsored institutional settings with often normative orientations into spheres of subjectification, social creativity, and material commemorative culture.

Post-Socialist Urban Infrastructures critically elaborates on often forgotten, but some of the most essential, aspects of contemporary urban life, namely infrastructures, and links them to a discussion of post-socialist transformation. As the skeletons of cities, infrastructures capture the ways in which urban environments are assembled and urban lives unfold. Focusing on post-socialist cities, marked by neoliberalisation, polarisation and hybridity, this book offers new and enriching perspectives on urban infrastructures by centering on the often marginalised aspects of urban research - transport, green spaces, and water and heating provision. Featuring cases from West and East alike, the book covers examples from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Russia, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Tajikistan, and India. It provides original insights into the infrastructural back end of post-socialist cities for scholars, planners and activists interested in urban geography, cultural and social anthropology, and urban studies.

"Post-modernism" and "post-socialism" are two frames that have been widely applied to account for urban changes over the past decades. It is a common statement to consider socialist urbanism as the pivotal embodiment of modernist thinking. The transformation to post-socialism consequentially appears as an instance of post-modernization. This overview article challenges such identification, arguing that modernist endeavours and the experience of the modern have been more diverse and complex than such periodization imply. In the present paper, we want to make the distinction between a narrow and broad conception of modernism. In the first part, we begin by discussing the "high modernist" approach, often conflated with modernism in toto. In such a narrow understanding, "modernism" amounts to a particular style in architecture and approach in urban planning and governance. Next, we present a broad conception of modernism as a cultural response to the experience of modernity and the yearning for being modern. We argue for the necessity of addressing the complexity and breadth of modernist visions. In conclusion, we pinpoint the major themes addressed by the contributors to this special issue and highlight how we think this volume contributes to scholarly debates about the merit of revisiting and resurrecting modernist urbanism in twenty-first century post-socialist urban contexts and beyond.

The article focuses on the dynamics of value patterns in Estonia over a period spanning late socialism to liberal market capitalism. The research data is derived from five population surveys 'Work, family and leisure' (WFL), in which value orientations were measured on the basis of Clyde Kluckhohn's conception. The same instrument of life values was used in 1985 (just before the perestroika of Soviet socialist system), in 1993, 1998 and 2003 (during the transition period of post-socialism) and in 2008 (just before the economic crisis in capitalist society). The aim of the study is to differentiate value patterns and observe the trends of their change during this period. The results of hierarchical cluster analysis reveal a clear tendency of structural change: a dichotomy of value profiles on the ethno-linguistic basis in 1985 and 1993 was replaced by a dichotomy of value profiles on the basis of age in 2003 and 2008. The results of multidimensional analysis show a relative stability of the value structure and a change in the meaning of some life values (professional work, close friends). The results are discussed in the context of post-socialist societal transformation.

"This paper provides a brief overview of elite change and continuity in East Germany as a post-socialist society. To do so, at first, some peculiarities of the former cadre system and elites in socialist East Germany, i.e. the late German Democratic Republic, are addressed with regard to social structure development and the arrangement of generations. Selected empirical evidence is based on cross-sectoral, longitudinal and cohort analyses and the inspection of prosopographic elite data compiled until the end of the 1980s which deconstruct the myth of a levelled egalitarian socialist society. In the second part of the paper, elite change and continuity after the political change of 1989/90 is discussed in the context of the transformation of institutions. Inspired by Bourdieu's analytic paradigm, one central thesis on the career survivals, take-offs, and breakdowns of East German elites is the continued validity and efficacy of social and cultural capital obtained before the fall of the wall, most of all formal qualification. Dimension of vertical social inequality under socialist rule, such as gender and class background, remain to be decisive until today." (author's abstract)

'Auf der Grundlage umfangreicher empirischer Daten aus Forschungen über die Elitenbildungsprozesse in den post-sozialistischen Ländern und mit Hilfe anderer Indikatoren der politisch-ökonomischen Entwicklung untersuchen die Autoren, wie sich Muster der Elitenreproduktion bzw. -zirkulation auf Prozesse der Demokratisierung und der sozioökonomischen Entwicklung auswirken. Sie behandeln dabei ein bisher eher vernachlässigtes Thema: die Frage, wie sich zwischen den beiden Segmenten der politischen Elite, die Pareto als die regierende und die nicht-regierende Elite bezeichnet hat, ein Gleichgewicht herstellen lässt.' (Autorenreferat)

Any discussion of the place of workers' participation in a socialist country must simultaneously consider a few different dimensions: