This module is not currently running in 2022 to 2023.
This module focuses on the afterlives of Soviet socialism in contemporary Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Throughout the 20th century, Soviet socialism provided the main economic and (geo)political alternative to Western capitalism and its forms of industrial modernisation. It was, however, also an internally-diverse social, political and cultural project that impacted all spheres of society and interpersonal relations, ranging from economic organisation, housing and consumption, to religious life. In 1989, this project collapsed with large-scale societal transformations across the Eurasian landmass and beyond. Starting from this point of rupture, the module addresses two sets of aims. Firstly, it will introduce students to the diversity of the afterlives of the 'actually living' Soviet socialism and postsocialism in contemporary Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Secondly, it will ask how ethnographic study of postsocialism can contribute to critical and comparative understanding of rapid and radical social changes. These aims will be explored by focusing on the themes studied by anthropologists (in a dialogue with historians and political scientists), including religious revival; memory and nostalgia; food and consumption; infrastructure and/of the state; nationalism; money and exchange networks; morality and personhood.
Total contact hours: 24
Private study hours: 126
Total study hours: 150
BSc Anthropology and associated programmes
BA Social Anthropology and associated programmes
Also available as an elective module
Research Essay, 2000 words (60%)
Book Review, 1200 words (30%)
Seminar presentation (10%)
Reassessment method: Like for like
Berdahl, D. (2010) On the Social Life of Postsocialism: Memory, Consumption, Germany. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bernstein, A. (2013) Religious Bodies Politics: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Shamanism. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Creed, G. (2011) Masquerade and Postsocialism: Ritual and Cultural Dispossession in Bulgaria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Henig D. and N. Makovicky, eds. (2016) Economies of Favours after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pelkmans, M., ed. (2009) Conversion after Socialism: Disruptions, Modernisms and Technologies of Faith in the Former Soviet Union. Oxford: Berghahn.
Reeves, M. (2014) Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Yurchak, Alexei (2005) Everything was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
8.1 Be conversant in the main themes and trends of the anthropology of postsocialism, and comparative study of postsocialist societies and cultures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia;
8.2 Critically understand the regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and their socialist legacies in economic, political, and social depth, the cultural diversity of the regions, and at regional, national and global levels;
8.3 Critically interpret the historical development of those societies and cultures;
8.4 Be able to apply anthropological insights to contemporary economic, political, religious and social developments in the post-socialist world e.g. nationalism; religious revival; transition from command economy to market capitalism; memory and nostalgia; gender; state infrastructures and borders; globalisation; and to develop awareness of the strengths and limitations of these insights compared to other disciplinary perspectives on post-socialist Eastern Europe and Central Asia;
8.5 Understand the impact of study of post-socialist societies on the anthropological study of religion, economy, politics, and social change;
8.6 Be knowledgeable about key theoretical contributions of the anthropology of postsocialism to the wider discipline and their leading role in shaping wider anthropological debates and disciplinary reflexivity.
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