Political ethnography and Russian studies in a time of conflict

Abstract

ABSTRACT As reliable and unfiltered access to Russia and Russians becomes a fraught issue for social scientists who wish to conduct surveys, focus groups, do ethnographies, or interview elite actors, the war presents scholars with an opportunity to reflect on questions of what data collection means, and on better communication between quantitative and qualitative scholars. Similarly, it forces us confront the extractive and colonial nature of knowledge production; the war reveals how social science has always relied on, but not really acknowledged, the labor of native scholars, but can no longer ignore indigenously produced work, particularly qualitative research. In this review piece, the author highlights both blind spots in the potential communication between political scientists and other social scientists, and already-existing points of connection that can be further expanded, precisely because of, not despite the war.