240067 VO+UE VM5 / VM6 - Lingering Postsocialism (2019W)

The past thirty years following the fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe witnessed impressive change in various aspects of political, economic, social and cultural life in the region, yet many anthropologists still use the frame of “postsocialism“ as a fruitful way to approach these societies. The course addresses the post-1989 social transformations by focusing on the impact of political and economic transition on civil society, labor, political culture, gender relations and other areas of social life. It will seek to address the diversity of ways that macro level processes (like political and economic transformation or “transition”) are experienced and understood by ordinary people, keeping in mind the lasting legacies of socialist modernization.

The course aims to introduce students to theories and concepts related to large and enduring phenomena (e.g. restructuring of the labor market, changes in gender relations, race, aesthetic transformations, memory and dealing with the past) which are further explored through the prism of everyday life. In contrast to the habitual viewpoint of social science literature, the course will go beyond the 1989 as an absolute starting point for Eastern European capitalisms, pointing out how previous entries into the international division of labor at various critical junctures during the Cold War greatly influenced the developments in the past three decades. It will thus make the students attentive to dis(continuities) of social change and varieties of socialist as well as postsocialist development paths, underlining similarities and differences between the regions and countries formerly ruled by communist parties.

Much of the scholarly literature to be discussed in the course will be ethnographic, grounded in the discipline of social anthropology and relying on a methodology of immersive participant observation, but the students will also be presented with texts from the fields of history of socialism, labor history and political economy.