Description
Book SynopsisDespite the intense processes of deindustrialisation around the world, the working class continues to play an important role in post-industrial societies. However, working-class people are often stigmatised, morally judged and depicted negatively in dominant discourses.
This book challenges stereotypical representations of workers, building on research into the everyday worlds of working-class and ordinary people in Russia’s post-industrial cities. The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia is centred on the stories of local communities engaged in the everyday struggles that occur in deindustrialising settings under neoliberal neo-authoritarianism.
The book suggests a novel approach to everyday life in post-industrial cities. Drawing on an ethnographic study with elements of arts-based research, the book presents a new genre of writing about workers influenced by the avant-garde documentary tradition and working-class literature.
Trade Review‘This excellently crafted qualitative study demonstrates how class is a powerful affective force in contemporary Russian society. Alexandrina Vanke is to be congratulated on her subtle and wide ranging theoretical reflexivity and for her sensitive and empathetic approach.’
Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics
‘Vanke’s research is as timely as it is painstaking. She effortlessly reveals the hidden life of political engagement and deep content of ‘ordinary peoples’ lives in this pathbreaking new ethnography of Russia.’
Jeremy Morris, Professor of Global Studies, Aarhus University
‘Drawing on a creative mix of Bourdieu, intersectionality theory and feminist geography, this deep study of postindustrial workers in contemporary Russia will challenge and enrich your views of class, everyday politics and the city.’
Loïc Wacquant, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
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Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part I: Theoretical sketches
1. Synthesising a theory of urban life and everyday struggle
Part II: Ways of life
2. Local atmospheres and imaginaries of industrial neighbourhoods
3. A gendered sense of place: intersectional inequalities in urban space
4. Moral value and signifiers of class
5. The social imaginary of Russian society: lay perceptions of inequality
Part III: Ways of struggle
6. Open protests: formation of political consciousness
7. The everyday forms of resistance: formation of practical consciousness
Epilogue
Appendix
