scholarly journals Precarious Transnationality in Family Relations on the Finnish-Russian Border during the Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Olga Davydova-Minguet ◽  
Pirjo Pöllänen

The article develops the view of transnational familyhood as an affect of precarity. Transnationality itself is viewed as being defined by state actors and border regimes which make transnational connections fragile and vulnerable. The precarity is compared here with “the lease that is not in your pocket”. The text assembles the authors’ ethnographic work in Finnish-Russian border areas from two decades. Using the methodology of narrative ethnography, the study creates a picture of the atmosphere and affects in which transnational familyhood has been kept alive from the early 1920s until today. The historical context of transnational familyhood is divided into four periods: the period of confrontation and wars, 1920s–1940s; the period of friendly cooperation and a selectively open border, 1950s–1980s; the post-Soviet period of a conditionally open border and migration, 1990s–2010s; and the post-Crimean period of rebordering and the securitization of the transnational everyday since 2014. The everyday reality of transnational familyhood is portrayed through the constructed figures of “Aili” and “Vera”, who represent women belonging to transnational families from different generations.

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moya Flynn ◽  
Natalya Kosmarskaya

In this paper we explore, through the narratives and perspectives of “old residents” in post-Soviet Bishkek, the dominant discourse which has emerged towards rural migrants arriving to the city from other areas of Kyrgyzstan from the late Soviet period onwards. We investigate the existence of a primarily “antagonistic” discourse in relation to the migrants and analyze this in detail to understand how it illuminates wider concerns amongst residents about what is occurring in their city, and about wider processes of social change in Kyrgyzstan. The paper provides a revealing insight into the processes of urban change in post-Soviet Central Asia, and demonstrates the ways in which confrontation with the everyday harsh realities of post-Soviet transformation can lead to the negative “othering” of one group of urban residents by another. We also demonstrate how the “old residents”’ perceptions of migrants reveal important insights into emerging notions and constructions of identity in the post-Soviet period, related in this case to understandings of “North” and “South'1 and related concepts of what is “urban” and what is “Kyrgyz”.


Author(s):  
M. T. Laumulin

The features of formation of statehood in Central Asia in the post-Soviet period are discussed in this article. The author makes the assumption that the Central Asian region has lost the homogeneity, said by researches. The way of construction of nation-states after the collapse of the Soviet Union is traced in this article. Also, it tells about the role of clans and family relations in Central Asia. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-454
Author(s):  
Lena Näre

This article analyses practices of transnational care and the lives of male asylum seekers and refugee families in the context of increasingly restrictive border and migration regimes. Research on transnationalism, transnational families, and care among forced migrants has emphasised the importance of the institutional context in transnational care and family relations across borders. This article contributes to the extant literature by examining how bureaucratic bordering – within nation states and beyond – restricts the possibilities of refugees in providing care to their family members and reuniting. The article also examines the struggles experienced by male refugees at bureaucratic borders. These struggles reveal a central dimension to transnational care that relates to the bureaucracy of visas and residence permits. The article highlights the importance of temporality and examines how the lives of refugee families are affected by extended and bureaucratically induced waiting. The article is based on ethnographic research conducted on Iraqi and Afghan asylum seekers in Finland in 2017–2019 and focuses on three asylum seekers in particular – namely, Amal, Sajed, and Yasin.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 245-255
Author(s):  
Rostislav F. Turovsky

The article is devoted to the study of the party model of Russian parliamentarism in post-soviet period. The focus is on the issues of party representation and its correlation with the distribution of the managerial positions and introduction of collective legislation at State Duma. These issues are examined from the point of view of reaching cross-party consensus and implementation of fair parliament party representation principle. According to the author Russian parliamentarism model aims at reaching full-fledged party consensus that corresponds better to the principles of popular representation than strict parliament polarization along the line of “authority-opposition”. Understanding of those issues by the majority of the players was noted from the very start of the State Duma activities, in spite of the acute conflicts in the 1990-ies.The author draws the conclusion that the equation of party representation continues to grow at the level of managerial positions in the parliament that allows to improve cooperation of the parties and to reduce authority and opposition conflicts. Thereby the Russian parliamentarism model makes an important contribution to the stabilization of socio-political situation of the country.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Pooja Shankar ◽  
Dr. Poonam Rani

Life is very precious for everyone. Life needs proper care and nurture. Human life depends on society. Only in a good society we can find a good life.  Life is simple, very little is needed to make it happy. But social evils insist on making it complicated. Social evils in society have become a serious concern in the present day world. It is gradually affecting roots of our culture and its blocking its rapid growth on the global chart. The aim of writing this research paper is to highlight Social Evils in rural and urban societies. This research paper will explore the meaning, reason, effect of social evils in the light of the analysis of two novels of Kamala Markandaya, an Indian English writer. The research paper entitled ‘The portrayal of Social Evils in Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve and A Handful of Rice.’ In this paper, the effort is made to study Kamala Markandaya’s Social Evils in Nectar in a Sieve and A Handful of Rice. We will find poverty, hunger, starvation, beggary, prostitution, crime, unemployment and many more social evils in both novels. Kamala Markandaya’s A Handful of Rice and Nectar in a Sieve nothing but an account of the suffering of the rural and urban people, and how the cruelty of social evil resulting in suffering, death and misfortune is more explicit in both novels. Poverty is the everyday reality of the characters in the both novels.  Poverty is not an abstract concept that one can really think about, it’s like wolf at the door that must constantly be staved off. Both novels are a jolt to awaken the society against social evils.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4-9
Author(s):  
Pavel A. BUTYRIN ◽  

The historical context in which the State Plan for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) was developed, establishment of the GOELRO Commission, the GOELRO Plan content, the specific features of its implementation, and the role of the plan in the soviet period of Russia’s history are considered. Attention is paid to the electrification plants of other countries and territories of all inhabited continents, and to the participation of states in the electrification of countries and regions with small-scale and agricultural production in the 1920 s. The specific features pertinent to the electrification of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic are pointed out, namely, low starting conditions (in 1923, the energy consumption per capita in Russia was 100 times lower than that in Norway), its being state-owned in nature and revolutionary in its purpose: to get done with the main upheavals in the country and to shift the national economy for fore efficient production. The role of V.I. Lenin and G.M. Krzhizhanovsky, who were the initiators of the electrification of Russia, is analyzed in detail. A conclusion is drawn about the need to study both the GOELRO Plan itself and the specific features and circumstances of its implementation within the framework of training modern specialists in electrical engineering.


Author(s):  
Elena A. Kosovan ◽  

The author of the publication reviews the photobook “Palimpsests”, published in 2018 in the publishing house “Ad Marginem Press” with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The book presents photos of post-Soviet cities taken by M. Sher. Preface, the author of which is the coordinator of the “Democracy” program of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Russia N. Fatykhova, as well as articles by M. Trudolyubov and K. Bush, which accompany these photos, contain explanation of the peculiarities of urban space formation and patterns of its habitation in the Soviet Union times and in the post-Soviet period. The author of the publication highly appreciates the publication under review. Analyzing the photographic works of M. Sher and their interpretation undertaken in the articles, the author of the publication agrees with the main conclusions of N. Fatykhova, M. Trudolyubov and K. Bush with regards to the importance of the role of the state in the processes of urban development and urbanization in the Soviet and post-Soviet space, but points out that the second factor that has a key influence on these processes is ownership relations. The paper positively assesses the approach proposed by the authors of the photobook to the study of the post-Soviet city as an architectural and landscape palimpsest consisting mainly of two layers, “socialist” and “capitalist”. The author of the publication specifically emphasizes the importance of analyzing the archetypal component of this palimpsest, pointing out that the articles published in the reviewed book do not pay sufficient attention to this issue. Particular importance is attributed by the author to the issue of metageography of post-Soviet cities and meta-geographical approach to their exploration. Emphasizing that the urban palimpsest is a system of realities, each in turn including a multitude of ideas, meanings, symbols, and interpretations, the author points out that the photobook “Palimpsests” is actually an invitation to a scientific game with space, which should start a new direction in the study of post-Soviet urban space.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-4) ◽  
pp. 49-52
Author(s):  
Yusup Guseynov

The article is based on archival materials, field ethnographic material and examines the problem of youth radicalism in the post-Soviet period. In the XXI century the second regular process of recruiting young people into the ranks of terrorists began. However, thanks to the official clergy (the Muftiate of the Republic of Dagestan), state authorities, public associations of the Republic, the process of radicalization of young people has stopped.


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