A treasury of ideas

Abstract

Many anthropologists have committed to decolonizing the field, but their references for what colonial/imperial projects look like come almost exclusively from Western cases, and are unwittingly ethnocentric in that regard. Russia’s ongoing efforts to gain territory and/or decisive influence from places beyond its current borders are evidence of other colonial dynamics, ones in which the shades of subjugation are also clothed in discourses of rescue and freedom, and in which social distinctions are real but not always racial or class/caste-based. Legacies of empire and resistance get reactivated, and nationalism gets reconfigured. Residents of former Soviet republics try to carve out sovereignty that does not have to be bulwarked by a larger power to be real, with evidence of the real-ness of sovereignty being that they cannot be invaded. Some Russian theorists of sovereignty, in contrast, have a much more relational understanding of the world, one in which the great powers extend a wing of refuge and protection to the smaller cousins. Ainur Begim’s contribution about Kazakhstan, Dace Dzenovska’s about Latvia, and Monica Eppinger’s on Ukraine all delve into these rapidly changing struggles for national identity, sovereignty, and prosperity in the shadow of an aggressive neighbor. While Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Latvia all have long histories of Russia imposing itself as a “big brother,” Russian involvement in the Central African Republic, chiefly through the operations of the Wagner Group, kindles different aspirations to sovereignty, as Louisa Lombard explores, but ultimately aspirations that appear further than ever from reach.