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The article examines how people in post-Soviet Russia learn to interpret Soviet political genealogies as implicated in their own family histories. Based on long-term fieldwork in a large provincial city in Russia, it focuses on a particular form of amateur genealogy called Rodologia (rodstvo = kinship). Informed by a burgeoning self-help culture, R...
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... method's healing model consists of several consecutive steps, all of which ground these family histories in their political and historical contexts. Most importantly, the Rodologian road to self-realization and self-transformation always begins with genealogical research, and the people I met in the Rodologia center spend a considerable amount of time researching their family histories and producing elaborate kinship charts (Figure 1). 4 In the Rodologian logic, family histories are always implicated in state genealogies. ...
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The preferred tool for conceptualizing, determining, and claiming relations of kinship, ancestry, and descent among humans are diagrams. For this reason, and at the same time to avoid a reduction to biology as transported by terms such as kinship, ancestry, and descent, we introduce the expression diagrammatics of relatedness. We seek to understand...
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... Such inclinations to fix and document kinship and ethnic ties can be traced back to the Soviet policy of indigenization (korenizatsia in Russian) with the intention to follow 'a linear path of development from kin-based or clan groups, through tribes and tribal federations, to finally reach the stage of modern nation-states as represented by the Soviet Republics' (Ismailbekova 2017, 30). 19 Its link to rodologia (the study of kinship, rodstvo in Russian) is striking for the popularity of the genre in Russia during the same period (Leykin 2015). Genealogical reckonings in travel writing gained traction in post-Soviet Republics to explain historical events in a similarly teleological fashion based on a Lamarckian-like idea of heredity. ...
The current 'repatriation' programme initiated by the Kyrgyz Republic presents a timely occasion to reflect on the ambivalence of predicating migration in ethnic terms through descent and territorial ascription. Instead, this paper looks at the way Afghan Kyrgyz migrants mobilize and modulate genealogical and territorial registers and the later fulfilment or frustration of their aspirations. A focus on the current 'repatriation' programme is doubly interesting here because it taps into broader questions of citizenship, autochthony, and the securing of durable rights and duties and secondly, because the programme's realization casts ambivalence to the pre-eminence of ethnic ascription in both the experience of migration and migration research. It argues that migrants' relative success in moving back and forth between places of 'departure' and 'arrival' (in the programme's own terms) complexifies the expected linearity of their 'repatriation' and implied definitive resettlement. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Šis piemērs sasaucas ar Džesikas Robinsas (Jessica Robbins) rakstīto par vecākās paaudzes poļu vilktajām paralēlēm starp savu dzīvesstāstu un Polijas valsts svarīgākajiem vēsturiskajiem pagriezieniem (Robbins 2020 nāvi Sibīrijā pagājušā gadsimta 30. gados tiek skaidrotas neveiksmes mūsdienu pēcteča biznesa dzīvē (Leykin 2015). Tādējādi saikne starp senčiem, radniecības principiem un valsts varu vai politisko iekārtu var būt gan pozitīva kā Kambalas gadījumā, gan negatīva kā Leikinas aprakstītajos gadījumos, bet tās nozīme cilvēku dzīvēs ir acīmredzama. ...
Grāmatā “Radniecība un valsts īstenošana mūsdienu Latvijā” sniegts antropoloģisks ieskats attiecībās, kādas pastāv starp valsti un radniecību. Tā sastāv no ievada un deviņām nodaļām. Ievadā Klāvs Sedlenieks apraksta valsts un radniecības savstarpējās saistības teorētisko ietvaru. Viņš kritizē tradicionālo uzskatu, ka radniecība ir dabas fakts, bet valsts – kultūras radīta sistēma, piedāvājot interpretēt šo dalījumu kā Rietumu kultūras folkteoriju. Autors argumentē, ka radniecība ir kultūras produkts, līdzīgi kā valsts, un to nevar uzskatīt par pārejošu vēstures fenomenu, bet gan par būtisku elementu Rietumu sabiedrībā. Grāmatas nodaļās apskatīti dažādi valsts un radniecības aspekti. Pirmajā nodaļā (K. Sedlenieks) aprakstīti Latvijas iedzīvotāju radniecības principi. Otrajā nodaļā (K. Sedlenieks, A. Lūse) analizēti iepriekšējie pētījumi par latviešu radniecību. Radniecības vēsturiskie aspekti skatīti trešajā nodaļā (V. Stikāne), kurā analizēta radniecības loma viduslaiku Livonijā. Ceturtajā nodaļā autore (D. Plepa) pievēršas 20. un 21. gadsimta juridiskajiem dokumentiem par radniecību. Pārējās nodaļās analizētas radniecības un valsts attiecības mūsdienu Latvijā: piektā nodaļa (A. Lūse) veltīta ciltskoku veidošanas praksei skolās, sestajā nodaļā (A. Žabicka, K. Sedlenieks) analizētas Saeimas diskusijas par radniecību, septītajā nodaļā (A. Saulītis, K. Rolle) apskatīta radniecības loma ekonomikā, astotajā nodaļā (D. Kiščenko) analizēta reproduktīvo klīniku prakse, devītajā nodaļā (A. Šuvajevs) – radniecības loma valsts rīcībpolitikas kontekstā. Grāmata kopumā apliecina, ka valsts un radniecība nav atsevišķi fenomeni, bet gan vienoti procesi, kas ietekmē viens otru. Grāmatu bagātina apjomīgs uzziņu aparāts – četri palīgrādītāji: grāmatā analizēto un minēto priekšmetu, personu, ģeogrāfisko vietu un etnisko grupu rādītājs, kā arī iekļauts kopsavilkums angļu valodā. Šīs monogrāfijas tapšanu atbalstīja Latvijas Zinātnes padomes granti divos projektos: “Valsts īstenošana un biosociālās saiknes (RELATE.LV)”, projekta Nr. lzp-2018/2-0070, un “Attiecības kustībā: tuvniecība mūsdienu mobilajos darba režīmos ((Re)moving Ties)”, projekta Nr. lzp-2021/1-0213. Ar RSU Zinātnes padomes lēmumu Nr. 6-ZP-1/5/2023 no 31.05.2023. grāmatai piešķirts kolektīvās monogrāfijas statuss. Zinātnes nozare – antropoloģija. Atslēgvārdi: valsts; radniecība; Latvija; antropoloģija; vēsture; likumi; performance.
... The second key shift involves the growing appeal of globalized therapeutic discourses in Russia (Lerner and Zbenovich 2013;Leykin 2015;Matza 2018). In post-Soviet health care, new ideas about the emotional well-being and safety of patients are part of the broader consumerist ideology that women patients embrace (Temkina 2018:221;Temkina et al. 2021). ...
We explore obstetrician-gynecologists’ (ob-gyns’) shifting involvement in late Soviet and post-Soviet reproductive politics and track broader political-economic dynamics of the profession’s ambivalent relations with state demographic discourses. Soviet ob-gyns largely distanced themselves from explicitly pronatalist agendas. Post-soviet national politics of ‘population renewal’ and the neoliberalization of health care have significantly restructured ob-gyns’ orientations. To assert their authority and gain economic footing, ob-gyns have highlighted their contributions to the state’s demographic agendas. The post-Soviet context illustrates how understanding the medicalization of population problems requires examining the political-economic relations between physicians and the state – dynamics that can transform ideologies and medical practices.
... In the Russian and post-Soviet context, where capitalism is relatively young and psychologised cultural knowledge is still in its infancy, therapeutic culture is developing on top of historical strata of emotional practices, which Lerner has called 'emotional socialism' (Lerner, 2015). Yet, research is already showing how new therapeutic forms in Russia are shaping knowledge production, transforming relationships between the individual and the state, and being translated into religious and nationalist forms of morality (Leykin, 2015;Matza, 2018). ...
... People like to look back to and reanimate the happiest parts of their childhood in making sense of their understanding of where they have come from and where they are now. There is a growing global trend for genealogy, which is also reflected in Russia as Inna Leykin (2015) outlines. Yet, as Leykin shows, for some Russian citizens, the distinction from other places is that genealogy is also used to address traumatic pasts and present problems. ...
... Yet, much of the theoretical and conceptual work to date focuses on how collective memories about 'difficult' or traumatic pasts are inherited by subsequent generations. Russia clearly has a difficult past and Leykin's (2015) study of genealogy as therapy mentioned earlier attests to the ways in which some Russian citizens attempt to come to terms with these memories in the absence of state commitment to transitional justice. There has been much attention given to the apparent 'rehabilitation' of elements of Stalinism and mis/remembering of Soviet atrocities in contemporary Russia and the implications this has for not dealing with trauma and violations (Sherlock 2016. ...
... An interview with Veronika, a student in her early 20s, began with a discussion of her use of the Internet at home in amateur genealogy work, searching for information about her grandfather who went missing in Second World War (see also Leykin 2015). While references to the Soviet past are clearly understandable in this example, references to the Soviet past continued through the interview as Veronica began discussing another daily use of the Internet relating to the problems she had experienced with the renewal of her passport. ...
In this chapter, Ursa explores multiple forms of displacement in Herta Müller’s prose. Identified as crucial ways of remediating the author’s autobiography and postmemory, linguistic estrangement, autobiographical mediation, and non-human displacement are central to the analysis. Based on two best-known novels by Müller, The Land of Green Plums and The Hunger Angel, the chapter shows how meaning is transferred throughout the narrative between speech, material objects, humanness, and animality. Focusing on the individual-collective interplay and on the human–non-human ambivalence, and dwelling on theoretical input from memory and postmemory studies, Ursa contends that the writer uses identity displacement to mediate and remediate different places of memory, where the non-human takes part in being human.
... This long-lasting practice in prayer removed from the distractions of social life makes them especially good molitvenniki, embodying the skill that comes with long practice as well as the charisma of a place known as remote and mysterious whose spiritual tradition was not interrupted by the socialist era. Comparable to rituals in post-Soviet Buddhism and practices drawing on New Age and popular psychology (Bernstein 2013;Leykin 2015), the idea of "praying out the lineage" is a way of extending spiritual care to relatives who lived and died during the Soviet period without receiving proper rites. The ROC does not support the idea of "kinship curses" that circulates among post-Soviet practitioners of magic, where "a disturbance … affects the health and well-being of the victim and her loved ones, that comes from the past and steers the present into an inevitable disaster" (Lindquist 2006, 62). ...
The Russian Orthodox Church portrays itself as a hierarchically ordered and socially influential "public religion," but occupies quite a tenuous position in contemporary Russian society. Following Marcel Mauss's idea of prayer as a social phenomenon, we argue that lay intercessory prayer as a way of assuming social responsibility is key to extending the Church's reach into the lives of casual believers (so-called zakhozhane). Although individualization of religious practice does occur in post-Soviet Russia, contemporary Russian Orthodox prayer is less about personal self-cultivation than about claiming and exercising competence within interpersonal networks. The notion of prayer as practical competence helps to understand the role of lay prayer in a clerically dominated church, and explains the enduring role of established, mainstream denominations as ambient faith in a secular society.
... According to Andreas Wimmer (1997), the search for a collective identity, generally, revives historical myths and beliefs that help to reassert the national self and its boundaries. In Russia, the search for a new national self led to the restoration of a sense of pride in the Soviet Union's accomplishments, and the re-writing of the Soviet Union's history in a positive light (Leykin 2015;Mendelson and Gerber 2008). This process has contributed to the intolerance of "others" in general, and to hostility towards immigrants-whom have continued to arrive in increasing numbers-in particular. ...
This article investigates mechanisms underlying anti-immigrant sentiment in post-socialist Russia in particular, and in societies undergoing a search for new national identity borders in general. We argue that when the borders of national identity are drawn and redefined, the forces that drive anti-immigrant attitudes differ meaningfully for members of the ethnic majority group and for members of the minority population. Our empirical analysis utilizes data obtained from a representative sample of the Russian population by the European Social Survey (2006-2012). Descriptive data reveal that the level of anti-immigrant attitudes among ethnic Russians (the majority population) is higher than among non-ethnic Russians (ethnic minority group), reflecting the fact that the crisis of national identity in post-socialist Russia has undermined, primarily, a sense of group position of ethnic majority. Our main findings demonstrate that in post-socialist Russia, as a society undergoing the critical period of the reconsideration of national identity, the anti-immigrant attitudes of the ethnic majority group rely mostly on perceptions of collective (state) vulnerability, while the anti-immigrant attitudes of ethnic minority groups rely to a greater degree on individuals’ vulnerable socioeconomic position, and conservative views and ideologies (i.e., self-interests).
... The nature, meaning, and effects of how genealogy is used to make sense of individual or collective identity depend on its context. Genealogy ranges from personally meaningful but largely un-contentious projects to explore a family tree [31], to genealogical practices that are ways of making sense of deeply political contexts and recovering genealogical knowledge in response to historical violence [32,33]. Recent efforts to consider how genealogy can be used in progressive and critical ways offer important practical as well as conceptual tools for doing so [9,[15][16][17]. ...
This paper explores genealogy through a focus on what I describe as the idea of genealogical relatedness. This is a model of human relations which emphasizes relationships between people defined through the reckoning of connections based on birth and parentage. I offer a geographical analytical framework for exploring both popular genealogy and ideas of genealogical relatedness, shared descent and difference. It is one that both attends to the variety of ways that collective identity is defined or explored through genealogy and is alert to the troubling nature of genealogical categorizations and differentiations especially those which are figured in terms of concepts that seem to be most progressive, including ideas hybridity, diversity, and universal humanity.
... First, as sociologists and anthropologists have noticed of genetics, the new knowledge gains 'plausibility, not through any inherent power of science, but by reinforcing already-existing cultural and political forms' (Montoya 2011;TallBear 2013). For instance, epigenetics, by emphasizing transmission of experience effects across generations, fortify some established ways of thinking genealogical relations at the popular level (for the case of post-socialist Russia, see Leykin 2015). Second, as in the case of genetics, we can expect a dialectics between poison and cure (Pollock 2012), victimization and agency. ...
The notion that biological memories of environmental experiences can be embedded in the human genome and even transmitted transgenerationally is increasingly relevant in the postgenomic world, particularly in molecular epigenetics, where the genome is conceptualized as porous to environmental signals. In this article I discuss the current rethinking of race in epigenetic rather than genetic terms, emphasizing some of its paradoxical implications, especially for public policy. I claim in particular that: (i) if sociologists want to investigate race in a postgenomic world they should pay more attention to this novel plastic and biosocial view of race; and (ii) there are no reasons to believe that an epigenetic view will extinguish race, or that soft-inheritance claims will produce a less exclusionary discourse than genetics (hard heredity). Quite the opposite, the ground for a re-racialization of social debates and the reinforcement of biological boundaries between groups are highlighted in the article.
... Indeed, over the past two decades there has been a remarkable growth in various forms of psychotherapy in East Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China (Matza, 2012;Sirotkina & Smith, 2010;Yang, 2013;Zhang, 2014). In Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, a range of therapeutic forms has flourished, from various modalities of formal psychotherapy, coaching and counseling, to self-help movements, radio call-in shows, and therapeutically informed television programs (Honey, 2014;Lerner, 2011;Lerner & Zbenovich, 2013;Leykin, 2015;Matza, 2009Matza, , 2012Raikhel, 2016;Salmenniemi & Vorona, 2014;Zigon, 2010), while in China a similar phenomenon has been described as a "psy fever" or "psycho-boom" (Zhang, 2014(Zhang, , 2015. It is precisely because psychotherapy is never simply a matter of "alleviat[ing] psychological distress," but "always involves subtler normative questions of how to live the good life," (Kirmayer, 2007, p. 248) that it has become so significant in these settings where norms, roles, and social expectations have changed rapidly in a short period of time. ...
Over the past decades, the formerly socialist countries of East Central Europe and Eurasia have experienced a range of transformations which bear directly upon the domains of mental health, psychiatry, and psychology. In particular, the disciplines and professions concerned with the human mind, brain, and behavior (“the psy-ences”) were strongly affected by sociopolitical changes spanning the state-socialist and postsocialist periods. These disciplines’ relationship to the state, their modes of knowledge production, and the epistemic order and subjectivities they contributed to have all undergone dramatic ruptures. In this essay, we trace the literature on these issues across three thematic domains: (a) history and memory; (b) the reform of psychiatry in an era of global mental health; and (c) therapy and self-fashioning. We argue for a closer articulation between the social science and historical literature on socialism and its “posts” and the literature among anthropologists, sociologists, and historians on the sciences of the mind and brain, and we suggest that each of these literatures helps to critically open up and enrich the other.