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Redefining Need, Reconfiguring Expectations: The Rise Of State-Run Youth Voluntarism Programs In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Redefining Need, Reconfiguring Expectations: The Rise Of State-Run Youth Voluntarism Programs In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Julie D Hemment
This article investigates the restructuring of the Russian social welfare system by interrogating Putin-era state-run projects to promote youth voluntarism. Set up in the aftermath of liberalizing social welfare reform, these organizations are interesting hybrids: at the same time as they honor the Soviet past and afford symbolic prominence to Soviet era values, they simultaneously advance distinctively neoliberal technologies of self-help and self-reliance. In dialogue with recent studies in the anthropology of neoliberalism and the anthropology of postsocialism, I consider the implications of these intertwined logics. Focusing on the interpretive work undertaken by one provincial voluntary organization, I argue that …
Nashi, Youth Voluntarism And Potemkin Ngos: Making Sense Of Civil Society In Post-Soviet Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Nashi, Youth Voluntarism And Potemkin Ngos: Making Sense Of Civil Society In Post-Soviet Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Julie D Hemment
This article tracks the aftermath of international development aid in post-Soviet Russia socialist space by interrogating Putin-era civil society projects. State-run organizations such as the pro-Kremlin youth organization Nashi (Ours) are commonly read as evidence of anti-democratic backlash and confirmation of Russia’s resurgent authoritarianism. Contributing to recent scholarship in the anthropology of postsocialism, this article seeks to account for Nashi by locating it in the context of fifteen years of international democracy promotion, global processes of neoliberal governance and the disenchantments they gave rise to. Drawing on a collaborative ethnographic research project with scholars and students in the provincial city …
Soviet-Style Neoliberalism? Nashi, Youth Voluntarism And The Restructuring Of Social Welfare In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Soviet-Style Neoliberalism? Nashi, Youth Voluntarism And The Restructuring Of Social Welfare In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Julie D Hemment
President Vladimir Putin has presided over a sustained mood of backlash against democracy promotion and the international interventions of the nineties. His doctrine of “sovereign democracy” appears to have broken with the liberal/neoliberal models that guided reform in Russia during this period. In this article, I show that something more complex is afoot: the Putin administration has advanced liberalizing reforms at the same time as it has rhetorically distanced itself from them. These contradictions are particularly manifest in the sphere of social welfare. Since 2001, Putin passed a series of liberal-oriented reforms that his nineties predecessors were unable to achieve, …
Global Civil Society And The Local Costs Of Belonging: Defining 'Violence Against Women' In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Global Civil Society And The Local Costs Of Belonging: Defining 'Violence Against Women' In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Julie D Hemment
This article contributes to scrutiny of feminist transnationalism by providing an ethnographic investigation of one of its most prominent campaigns. Thanks to the efforts of feminist activists, violence against women is now an international development issue, backed by the UN and prioritized by international donors and NGOs. I consider this success from the perspective of postsocialist Russia, where the first crisis centers have been set up in recent years. I argue that the campaigns have troubling effects: the framing of violence against women screens out local constructions of events, and deflects attention from issues of social justice. Presenting insights gained …
The Riddle Of The Third Sector: Civil Society, Western Aid And Ngos In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
The Riddle Of The Third Sector: Civil Society, Western Aid And Ngos In Russia, Julie D. Hemment
Julie D Hemment
This article examines the forms and logic of political activism encouraged by international development agencies in Russia, by focusing on the project to promote civil society development. The version of civil society that has been brought into being by western design - the third sector - is far from what Russian activists desired and what donor agencies promised. Despite its claims to allow a grassroots to flourish, the third sector is a professionalized realm of NGOs, inaccessible to most local groups and compromised by its links to a neoliberal vision of development. The article pushes beyond some of the recent …