Power, Conflict and Morality in the Postsocialist World
Course held by the East / Central Europe Research Group
Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen
Coordinator - Finn Sivert Nielsen
Materials for Maja Hojer's lecture  

Themes for classroom discussion

  1. Which themes and discussions from the previous lectures and their texts (Verdery's article, her book, Shlapentokh, Ashwin and Gal & Kligman) do you recognize in Rivkin-Fish's article? Think of the key words power, conflict and morality, public and private and gender.
  2. See Gal and Kligman (p.40): How do ordinary social actors (and social theorists!) use and change the idea of "public/private" as they order and understand their social lives? How is the idea of public/private configured and reconfigured?
  3. What does Rivkin-Fish's text tell us about and women's and men's public and private roles in Russia? To what extent are these roles culturally and historically specific? What are male and female responsibilities within this role-system? Who is responsible for "morality"? How do the Russian gender roles differ from the corresponding roles in your own country? How can we see that Rivkin-Fish is describing post-socialist Russia?
  4. Which historical changes and continuities does Rivkin-Fish identify?

Suggestions for further reading
&
Themes for course papers

(You are welcome to mail me for further literature suggestions on these and related themes, at: maja.hojer@orangenet.dk)

Public and private moralities

1. Reproduction and abortion are themes that link morality, power, gender roles in the public and private sphere. Especially in Central Europe, it has become a political controversy during the transition from communism. This would offer a good, narrow empirical focus for a course paper combining some of the course's central themes. If you are interested in learning more about this, a good place to start is:

Gal, Susan and Kligman, Gail. Eds. 2000. Reproducing Gender. Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Check out the introduction first! Part One in Gal and Kligman's book is about "Reproduction as Politics". The following three articles are from this volume:

Marody, Mira and Giza-Poleszczuk: Changing Images of Identity in Poland: From the Self-Sacrificing to the Self-Investing Woman?

Zielínska, Eleonora: Between Ideology, Politics, and Common Sense: The Discourse of Reproductive Rights in Poland.

Wolnick, Sharon L.: Reproductive Policies in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

You will find the articles in the reception among the course master copies - but remember to put them back after copying!!

Another interesting book that covers various aspects of gender (including: work, reproductive rights and abortions) in the former GDR, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the USSR/Russia is:

Einhorn, Barbara. 1993. Cinderella Goes to Market. Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe. London and New York: Verso.

The book is available at the Royal Library.

For articles about gender, reproduction and abortion in Russia and the former Soviet Union, see also:

Marsh, Rosalind. Ed. 1996. Women in Russia and Ukraine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

And, if you are interested in the historical background and the situation of women in the Soviet Union described by Russian, feminist writers, see:

Holland, Barbara. Ed. 1985. Soviet Sisterhood. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Mamonova, Tatyana. Ed. 1984. Women and Russia. Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union. Boston: Beacon Press.

2. It could also be interesting to explore the male side of the kinship metaphors linking the socialist state and its citizens that Ashwin writes about, that is male gender roles in public and private life. There is less literature about men than women, but see e.g.:

Borneman, John. Ed. 2004. Introduction: Theorizing Regime Ends. In: Death of the Father. An Anthropology of the End of Political Authority. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books.

The book has good chapters on the symbolic father figures of Ceausescu, Tito, Stalin, German Nazism and Mussolini.

Bickford, Andrew. 2001. Male identity, the Military, and the Family in the Former German Democratic Republic. In: The Anthropology of East Europe Review, vol. 19, no. 1. (The journal is available at the library of the Institute of Anthropology.)

Kiblitskaya, Marina. 2000. "Once we were kings". Male experiences of loss of status at work in post-communist Russia. In: Ashwin, Sarah (ed.): Gender, state, and society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. London and New York: Routledge.

Masculinity is a new area of research that attracts considerable attention on conferences and workshops at this time, so I expect more publications in the future. It could be a great future fieldwork area for you ; )

3. For suggestions on literature about The Soldiers' Mothers movement in Russia, feel free to mail me (see my email address above!).