Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований
Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Enrique Peruzzotti
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 65-85.
Argentina’s current democratic period, inaugurated in 1983, has differed markedly from the country’s previous democratic experiences as a result of a new form of relationship between citizens and politicians, particularly the emergence of a more sophisticated and demanding citizenry determined to translate preexisting ideals of democratic representation into a novel civic concern for governmental accountability. The dramatic experience of state terrorism under the last military dictatorship, which governed the country from 1976 to 1983, gave rise to a new actor—the human rights movement—which would play a crucial pedagogic role in Argentine society, introducing a much-needed concern for rights and the rule of law into the country’s political culture.


Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Françoise Daucé
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 86-102.
In Russia, the “democratic transition” took place about ten years after the transitions in Latin America: the democratic period began in Argentina in 1983, while the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991. Many comparative works have highlighted the role played by civil societies in the fall of these authoritarian regimes (Okuneva 1994; Khoros 1998; Vizgunova 2001; Vorozheikina 2001; Meier-Dallach and Juchler 2002). Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen were “truly impressed by the importance in East Europe and Latin America, as well as in the advanced capitalist democracies, of the struggle for rights and their expansion, of the establishment of grassroots associations and initiatives and the ever renewed construction of institutions and forums of critical publics.”


Опубликовано на портале: 28-06-2013
Agnieszka Pasieka
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2013.
№ 1.
С. 98-117.
This article discusses experiences of postsocialist transformation in rural Poland. It is based on a year-long ethnographic fi eldwork carried out in a peripheral region of southern Poland. Its inhabitants today face problems of unemployment and instability, as not only were state-owned farms closed but the new political-economic order and Poland’s accession to the European Union have caused a radical reshaping of the agricultural sector. However, rather than being passive observers of these ongoing changes, people are determined to have some say and to shape their own lives and the place they inhabit. This article argues that a fruitful way of studying these processes is through a focus on local leaders and civil society activists. Examining new forms of social organization, cooperation, and leadership, it describes local people’s ability to creatively draw on their socialist experiences, adapting them to new contexts and transforming them into innovative strategies for coping with new challenges. Beyond exploring local people’s narratives of socialism and their assessments of present-day developments, the article also questions some widespread assumptions regarding the role of rural areas in the process of postsocialist transformation.


Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Françoise Daucé, Enrique Peruzzotti
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 103-106.
The late 1980s and early 90s saw an upsurge in comparative research on civil society in Latin America and Eastern Europe. At the time, scholars supported the idea of a “third wave of democratization,” and Latin America was presented as a model for post-communist countries. Civil societies in both regions were analyzed comparatively. Emblematically, the Russian Soldiers’ Mothers were often compared with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. However, the further evolution of postcommunist societies soon discouraged further comparison. This was especially the case for Russia, where social and political change took unforeseen paths. Scholars came to underline the specifi city of Russian social structures and traditions to explain this. Given this divergence, why revisit the comparison between Russia and Argentina today?


Опубликовано на портале: 03-04-2013
Amandine Regamey
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2012.
№ 3.
С. 42-66.
In 2001 a rumor started to spread in Chechnya, according to which Russian forces arrested and murdered young Chechen men in order to sell their organs. These rumors of organ traffi cking are reminiscent of those that have surfaced in other contexts of extreme violence, particularly in Latin America. A comparison with research on Latin America allows us to show how organ theft rumors gradually spread and crystallize as structured stories and permits us to examine how these stories enter international discourses about the mistreatment and commodifi cation of human bodies under conditions of violence and confl ict. This article argues that organ theft rumors are a collective way of expressing fears, putting a traumatic experience into words, and talking about what war has done to Chechen society.


Discreet Economy: Luxury Hospitality in the Context of Postsocialist Transformation of Czech Society [статья]
Опубликовано на портале: 28-06-2013
Iveta Hajdáková
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2013.
№ 1.
С. 73-97.
In the Czech Republic, popular discourse on service workers is characterized by complaints about poor level of Czech hospitality resulting from the country’s socialist history. On the other hand, there are luxury restaurants that are considered a mark of individual success of their owners as well as of economic transformation and prosperity. This article looks at a case study of one luxury restaurant in Prague and shows how hospitality, luxury, and inequalities between workers and customers were negotiated and contested by workers. The concept of discreet economy is introduced to analyze exchanges between agents, inequalities between them, and workers’ strategies of resistance. Readers are invited to see luxury hospitality as an arena where postsocialist transformation of the society is negotiated.


European Politics and Society: Studies by Young Russian Scholars. Saint Petersburg:
Intersocis [статья]
Опубликовано на портале: 21-10-2010
Elena Belokurova
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 448-449.
European Politics and Society: Studies by Young Russian Scholars. Saint Petersburg: Intersocis, Vol. 1: 2009. 224 p., Vol. 2: 2010. Both volumes contain papers by doctoral students based in Russia and working in the fi eld of European Studies. The contributions grew out of a series of summer schools for postgraduate students entitled European Union Studies: Methodological Opportunities and Limits held in 2007, 2008, and 2009.


Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Gastón Joaquín Beltrán, Jeffrey K. Hass
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 123-154.
The 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by sweeping, radical neoliberal, monetarist-inspired economic reforms designed to correct fi nancial or structural crises. Latin American countries initiated the wave, followed by Eastern Europe and the former USSR, although the timing, scope, and policies varied. Often one reads accounts of friends and foes of reform lined up to do battle in domestic and international alliances. However, reform processes and outcomes do not always follow the formula of reformers versus conservatives; there is more to the balance of power than these all-too-common accounts would suggest.


Опубликовано на портале: 20-10-2010
Gabriel Kessler, María Mercedes Di Virgilio
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 200-220.
Through much of the twentieth century, Argentina stood out among Latin American nations due to the signifi cant infl uence of its middle class. Various elements shaped this class, which not only occupied public service positions, as was the case in most of Latin America (Touraine 1988), but was also involved in a wide range of occupations. Its genesis occurred during the 1930s, when differential rent deriving from the agricultural sector resulted in distribution toward the administrative, service, and public administration sectors. During both the fi rst and the second administrations of Juan D. Perón (1946–55), social benefi ts favored the middle segments of society and also led to the formation of a protected working class that, to a large extent, considered itself part of the middle class.


Insecure Land Rights, Obstacles
to Family Farming, and the Weakness of Protest
in Rural Russia [статья]
Опубликовано на портале: 20-10-2010
Oane Visser
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 275-295.
This article discusses property reforms in the postcommunist countryside (focusing on Russian policies, which have been the most “progressive” among the dominant economies of the former Soviet Union) and analyzes why they have hardly stimulated capital formation and empowerment among the rural population so far, compared with rural developments in Argentina that are discussed by Bidaseca in her paper in this issue.


Опубликовано на портале: 05-04-2013
Александр Александрович Кондаков
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2012.
№ 3.
С. 175-180.
Last autumn in St. Petersburg, local parliament adopted a law banning “gay propaganda.” Similar laws had been already enacted in Arkhangelsk and Ryazan, and some other regional governments were ready to follow their example. The discussion around this law produced some evident effects: LGBT activists became visible in their public resistance against these oppressive legal modifi cations.


Опубликовано на портале: 01-11-2012
Tommaso Pardi
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2012.
№ 2.
С. 224-226.
As stated in the introduction by Lewis Siegelbaum, the principal objective of this collective book is “to explore the interface between the motorcar and the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR". This is done mainly from two different perspectives.


Опубликовано на портале: 23-02-2012
Catriona Kelly
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2011.
№ 3.
С. 53-96.
This article discusses the process of home-making in Leningrad during the post-Stalin era, a period characterized both by the growing importance of the individual one-family apartment, as opposed to the kommunalka, and by a rise of interest in local history. Discussion focuses on the extent to which this new interest in the past, and memory practices more generally (whether locality and family-specifi c), affected the organization and decoration of the domestic environment. In English, extensive summary in Russian.


Making “the
People”: Political Imaginaries and the Materiality
of Barricades in Mexico and Latvia [статья]
Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Iván Arenas, Dace Dzenovska
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 179-199.
In 2006, improvised barricades went up in the Mexican city of Oaxaca to defend the city’s residents and members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca from paramilitary incursions and police repression. Composed of everything from appropriated buses to nails, sticks and string, and organized and protected by housewives and young kids from urban crews, the Oaxacan barricades cultivated an intimate and effervescent sociality of el pueblo (the people). Fifteen years earlier, in 1991, the Latvian tauta (the people or Volk) also constructed barricades in the streets of Rīga to shield themselves and important landmarks from Soviet military units.


Опубликовано на портале: 19-10-2010
Marina Farinetti
Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований.
2010.
№ 2.
С. 107-122.
The process of democratization in contemporary Argentina began in 1983. Since then, government formation has been based on periodically held democratic elections. Nevertheless, there have been serious political crises, which have in various ways affected the stability of most presidents over the period. In 1989, the most profound economic crisis Argentinians had experienced since 1983 resulted in hyperinfl ation (around 300% per month) and the spread of lootings and social unrest in most large cities.

