Punk Prayers versus Neoliberalism

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the trajectories of Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina in the years since their performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This study, however, does not simply focus on their activities as individuals, but seeks to contextualize their work over the last decade in terms of capitalism, neoliberalism, and collective struggle. Planting the history of Pussy Riot within the context of historic and contemporary tensions within intersectional feminisms in Russia, the “West”, and transnationally, this paper will map divergences and convergences that render transnational feminist collaboration both troubled and uniquely productive. Global neoliberalism has challenged nation-states to develop hybridized and dynamic tactics of control that function both locally and in terms of transnational relations, and feminist movement therefore faces the same challenge; this paper participates in that struggle.