Identity and Nation Building in Everyday Post-Socialist Life

• Author(s): Abel Polese, Jeremy Morris, Emilia Pawłusz, Oleksandra Seliverstova,
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 192
• ISBN_10: 1351735438
  ISBN_13: 9781351735438
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General , Social Science / Regional Studies , Social Science / Human Geography , Political Science / General , Social Science / Sociology / General , Social Science / Anthropology / General ,

Description:... This book explores the function of the “everyday” in the formation, consolidation and performance of national, sub-national and local identities in the former socialist region. Based on extensive original research including fieldwork, the book demonstrates how the study of everyday and mundane practices is a meaningful and useful way of understanding the socio-political processes of identity formation both at the top and bottom level of a state. The book covers a wide range of countries including the Baltic States, Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and considers “everyday” banal practices, including those related to consumption, kinship, embodiment, mobility, music, and the use of objects and artifacts. Overall, the book draws on, and contributes to, theory; and shows how the process of nation-building is not just undertaken by formal actors, such as the state, its institutions and political elites.