Ukrainian tragedy—Maidan

Book Review: Denys Gorbach, <i>The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City</i>

This paper explores the contested notion of what constitutes a fair price in the context of grain exchanges in a subsistence farming village in the highlands of Matagalpa. Using ethnographic data, I show how Nicaraguan campesinos’ economic behavior plays out within a local moral universe of fairness: how much to produce and how much to sell in the market (or to give away); how prices and obligations vary depending on the social relation that binds the seller and the buyer (kinship, friendship, community, and so on); in what ways these notions of fair price are articulated and contested by different classes within a rural community; and lastly, what is expected of the State in terms of regulating food prices. Price emerges as the dialectic between the market in its abstract form and the specific social relationships and everyday politics that shape exchanges. What constitutes help (ayuda) and what constitutes exploitation in market exchanges and the determination of price is constantly contested, the moral economy is a discursive battlefield.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewDurkheim, the Durkheimians, and the Arts. Edited by Alexander Riley, W. S. F. Pickering, and William Watts Miller. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. Pp. viii+309. $95.00.Terry Nichols ClarkTerry Nichols ClarkUniversity of Chicago Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 121, Number 6May 2016 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/685771 Views: 112Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref For permission to reuse a book review printed in the American Journal of Sociology, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Wu Changzhi FORMS OF SYNTHESIS OF ARTS OF CHINESE ARCHITECTURE, Municipal economy of cities 4, no.164164 (Oct 2021): 58–64.https://doi.org/10.33042/2522-1809-2021-4-164-58-64

370 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 republicwas proclaimed. But, like Ukraine, they were tryingto put together a state before they had created the nation. Lackingarms, they could not create a viable army, and their survivaldepended on the White armieskeeping civil war at a distance.With the Red Armytriumphant,theirindependence quickly disappeared.The taskof nation building continued under Soviet rule,but was to be cruelly interrupted under Stalin's purges, when much of the Kazak intelligentsiawas exterminated. Everyhistorianis limited by availablesources,and Sabol acknowledgesthe limits to his. He depends heavily on the publications of the intelligentsia, archivesourcesbeing rathersparse.The unfortunatebut unavoidableresultis that there is little that can be said on how ordinaryKazaks were affected by their efforts. Sabol does, however, stress that the land question was the overriding issue to most Kazaks, and was far more important than political independence, and that the process of developing a national identity he describes was in its early stages. The language is lucid, though there is an assumptionof existingknowledge of the Russian empire in the period. A map would have been useful. This, however, remains a most worthy study that employs the availablesourceseffectivelyand eloquently. Department ofHistoy JOHN SWIFT StMartin'sCollege Steinberg,MarkD. Proletarian Imagination: Sel, Modernity andtheSacred inRussia, I9IO-I925. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2002. xii + 335 PP. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $24.95: 1i6.95 (paperback). THEflood of works by proletarian writers in the years before and after the Bolshevikrevolution has only now begun to receive sustained attention from scholarsin the West. Followingon the heels of Evgenii Dobrenko'slarge-scale TheMakingoftheStateWriter (Stanford,CA, 200 I), in which the rise of Soviet literaryinstitutionswas systematicallyanalysed,MarkSteinberghaspresented us with a detailed and subtle social history of early proletarian literature in Russia. The contours of these often tortured attempts at self-expressionby semi-educated workers, along with their many contradictions and inner tensions have seldom been laid out with such care and evident respect. This, along with the meticulousreferencingof sourcematerialwill make Steinberg's book a valuable resourcefor culturalhistoriansand literaryscholarsfor some time to come. While presenting much material of value, Steinberg's book is, however, subject to the same limitations as much social history. Subaltern culture is viewed in isolation from the dominant culture, and the shifting institutional framework that imposed a structure on the 'proletarian imagination' itself. The interactionbetween worker-writersand the dominant cultureprovided a mobile structure that conditioned the development of both cultural trends. Once this focus is lost, process dissolves into ambiguity, the theme that runs throughout Steinberg'sstudy. Symptomatic of Steinberg's approach is an eagerness to draw on much recent cultural theory, but a complete neglect of the tradition of Marxist REVIEWS 37I labour historythat has providedmany subtlereadingsof workingclassculture in other areas. E. P. Thompson's writing on the formation of the English working class, the 'moral economy' and the symbolic structureof subaltern writing, for instance, has much in common with Steinberg's findings about the nascent Russian proletariat, but is completely ignored. Indeed, even contemporary Russian Marxists are given short shrift,generally represented here by the pronouncements of cultural bureaucrats rather than the many more subtle thinkers of the time. The ideological contradictions inherent in much proletarianwriting of the period is set against a rathermechanical and undialectical 'Marxist' meta-narrative and then pronounced to be more complex than Marxist thinkers could comprehend. It is, of course, a simple taskto show the relativevulgarityof culturalbureaucrats'pronouncements in comparisonwith contemporaryculturaltheory,but thiswould be rathermore difficultif these voices were replaced by Walter Benjamin'sforensic analyses of the contradictionsof urbanexperience orAntonio Gramsci'sanalysisof the dynamic relationshipbetween the 'contradictoryconsciousness' of the subaltern masses and the work of 'organic intellectuals' such as the proletarian writers discussed here. These silences in the text speak volumes about the ideological agenda being pursuedhere. In place of an analysisof the ideological and political conflictsof the time in which the proletarian writers engaged, we have a focus on the unstable relations between individual and collective identities, and between religious and secular idea structuresin the work of individual writers. Shifts between optimism and doubts over the possibilityof decisively changing the alienated experiences of the urban masses are not closely integrated into the shifting fortunesof the labour movement before the revolution and then...

Detroit has long been noted for the difficulties its residents face with basic food provisioning, but after an extended absence, national chain grocery stores are now returning to the city. Whole Foods Market is the first major national corporate grocer to reopen in the city following a period of disinvestment by the sector as a whole going back to the mid-2000s. As the city moves through a series of dramatic political and economic upheavals defined by fiscal crisis, emergency manager control, and the largest municipal Chapter 9 bankruptcy in U.S. history, food has become a focal point for debates over economic and racial inequalities, and contrasting ideals of urban governance in the city. In this research brief, we describe an ethnographic project that examines how concepts of food justice and ethical food relate to urban governance in Detroit. We seek to explore how Whole Foods Market and Detroiters engaged in shopping and activism articulate “just,” “good,” and “quality” food in ways that imply varying visions of governance for the city, community, and self. We suggest that Detroit's moral economy of food could offer a particularly fruitful venue for understanding divergent visions of the city's future and the relationship between food and politics.

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the unique economic practices of Slab City, California, an off‐grid community that rejects mainstream US values. Despite operating within the broader US economic system, Slab City residents have developed alternative forms of exchange, using cigarettes and cannabis alongside US dollars. The article examines the symbolic meanings associated with these alternative currencies, arguing that their value derives from symbolic gestures of trust and solidarity, reflecting a rejection of surplus value extraction and an embrace of shared economic experience. The analysis dives into Slab City's moral economy, highlighting the community's reliance on collective action for resource provisioning, such as weekly rituals of free meals, communal water tanks, and group efforts in resource acquisition and distribution. Contrasting Slab City's internal economic practices with the exploitative practices of the investor–state nexus in surrounding towns, the article underscores the community's commitment to mutual aid and challenges to capitalist norms. Finally, the article highlights the fluidity of monetary forms and the potential for alternative currencies to emerge within specific social contexts.

Throughout the twentieth century Scottish miners resisted deindustrialisation through collective action and by leading the campaign for Home Rule. This book shows that coal miners occupy a central position in Scotland’s economic, social and political history. It highlights the role of miners in formulating labour movement demands for political-constitutional reforms that helped create the conditions for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The book examines the moral economy, which prioritised communal security and collective voice. Three different generations of Scottish coal miners are identified, shaped by successive predominant forms of coal mining unit across the twentieth century. The Village Pit generation, born in the 1900s, defined the terms of the moral economy, and secured nationalisation in 1947. The New Mine generation, born in the 1920s, enforced the moral economy and made nationalisation work in the interests of miners. It advanced Home Rule arguments to protect economic security in the struggle against deindustrialisation. The Cosmopolitan Colliery generation, born in the 1950s, tried to protect the moral economy and communal security in the coalfields in the great strike of 1984-85. The experiences of miners are used to explore working class wellbeing more broadly throughout the prolonged and politicised period of deindustrialisation that culminated in the Thatcherite assault of the 1980s.

Antoinette Burton and Stephanie Fortado, eds. Histories of a Radical Book: E. P. Thompson and “The Making of the English Working Class”. New York: Berghahn Books, 2020. Pp. 128. $120.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 2

Sahraoui, Nina (ed.). Borders across healthcare: moral economies of healthcare and migration in Europe. viii, 224 pp., tables, figs., bibliogrs. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, 2020. £99.00 (cloth)

Reviewed by: Punks & Skins United: Identity, Class & the Economics of an Eastern German Subculture by Aimar Ventsel Anna Seidel Punks & Skins United: Identity, Class & the Economics of an Eastern German Subculture. By Aimar Ventsel. New York: Berghahn Books, 2020. Pp. xiv + 179. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-1-78920-860-3. In his essay "Alles in Laufnähe. Vom Leben in mittelgroßen Städten," Martin Büsser, the by-now deceased German pop critic, stated that if one wants to experience something exciting in middle-sized cities, this "something" has got to be created by oneself: "Therefore there are islands in middle-sized cities, where togetherness is affirmed by familiarity, community spirit, and a DIY-ethos that one would not find in any metropolis of the world." (in Fur immer in Pop, 2018, p 18, my trans.) His thorough, if not necessarily uncritical, praise of German medium-sized cities might well have been the starting point for the most recent book by anthropologist Aimar Ventsel. With Punks & Skins United: Identity, Class & the Economics of an Eastern German Subculture he presents a unique study of the do-it-yourself punk scene in Halle. "Familiarity, community spirit, and a DIY-ethos" is exactly what Ventsel explores during his field study in this city located near Leipzig in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, with approximately 240,000 inhabitants. Within seven short chapters that might even work as individual readings, he describes the subculture, its main ideas, and concepts (e.g., "The Punk [End Page 386] Rock Moral Economy," "Unemployed and Proud!"), as well as surrounding contexts (e.g., "The Transformation of East Germany"). Since the 1990s, Ventsel has spent quite some time within German punk and skinhead scenes mainly in the cities of Berlin, Potsdam, and medium-sized Halle. The role Ventsel takes on in these scenes is a special one, a role that adjusts and transforms over the decades as we learn from autobiographical reflections that he tosses in here and there. As a foreign student from Estonia interested in alternative music, he had become a part of the Berlin punk scene in the 1990s quite naturally, and he enters the scene in Halle in a similar way. Ventsel does not need to "go native"; Ventsel has been an insider all along, going to concerts, collecting records, and participating in pub nights, but he also is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, which is why he moved to Halle in the first place. At some point, he is offered funding to perform research on the punk scene he already is part of—he is staying native, so to say. So, when he starts researching this scene, his own scene, his focus has to shift from friendly observations in day-to-day life to a more research-focused view requiring a far more distanced and self-reflective perspective. Anecdotic journaling gives way to more thorough field notes that then have to be transformed into a book. The decision to repeat some anecdotes and sentences almost word-for-word in different parts of the book is a little irritating, especially since the book itself is not very long. Within the process of studying and writing, however, friends have to become "informants," as Ventsel calls the main protagonists here. Snapshots of mutual adventure—some of which he kindly shares with us—become visual aids to explain the punk scene and his thoughts on it to unaware outsiders, who would probably never be able to gain insight to it without this study. Ventsel manages to write Punks & Skins United with obvious care about the Halle punk scene. In his study he is guided by internal scene communications in several languages—be it in person, in fanzines, relevant memoirs, and even song lyrics, which only underlines the author being in the know. However, his study is also informed by an academic framework shaped by ethnography, history, and the respective disciplines inspired by Birmingham-born cultural studies, both now and then. Ventsel mainly focuses on a venue called GiG, which is short for "Ganz im Gegenteil" and translates to "quite the opposite." Even though the alliteration gets lost in translation, the subcultural status of the...

In the 1970s social historians from the British Left inaugurated a refreshingly new way of uncovering histories of dispossessed and marginal classes made famous in the opening remarks of E.P. Thompson, who declared his intention to rescue the poor labourer and the factory worker from the ‘enormous condescension’ of history in his classic The Making of the English Working Class.1 Historians of Asia in search of new models to explain peasant resistance found punditry in the works of Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill, E.P. Thompson,2 and later James Scott, who adapted the Thompsonian concept of the ‘moral economy’.3

Subsistence Crises, Managerial Corruption and Labour Protests in China

More Than Three Meals per Day

<i>The Power of the People: Everyday Resistance and Dissent in the Making of Modern Turkey, 1923–38</i> by Murat Metinsoy

This article takes the public reaction to the discovery of an aborted foetus in a rural Zambian community as the empirical starting point for exploring the everyday politics of reproduction. It builds on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork on abortion and abortion policy in Zambia in 2017 and 2018, including participant observation in the community where the episode took place and interviews with clinic staff and neighbours. The article explores local dynamics of abortion opposition in a country where abortion is legally permitted on broad grounds. By analysing this case as an anthropological event, it discusses how opposition to abortion is dynamic and changes depending on the situation at hand. While abortions that avoid public attention may be silently tolerated, abortions that become openly known are harshly condemned. Through scrutiny of a specific case of collective moral judgement of abortion, the article examines how values like responsible motherhood, sexual virtue and protection of life emerge and are shared, allowing participants to protect and accumulate their own integrity in a moral economy that forges stronger social ties within the community. The article argues that even the harshest expressions of opposition to abortion may not be as categorical as they first appear. It calls for increased attention to dynamics of moral and political opposition to abortion to understand what is socially at stake for those who engage in it.