Socio-political Relations Research Articles

Dismantling the Settler-Colonial Punitive School System: Speculative Future-Making with a Rural High School Community Amid Uncertainty and Political Backlash

Background/Context: In the United States, American Indian youth face multiple forms of marginalization in a settler-colonial school system. In particular, exclusionary school discipline practices (e.g., out-of-school suspensions, expulsions) have been used as tools of exclusion, through which Indigenous bodies are erased from the learning spaces while reinforcing and perpetuating white settler-colonial privilege. To combat settler-colonial violence deployed through disciplinary policies and practices, the Indigenous Learning Lab intervention was implemented in a rural Midwestern high school from 2019 to 2024. The Indigenous Learning Lab is a community-driven participatory design process aimed at systemic transformation. Despite the co-development of locally meaningful solutions through the Learning Lab methodology to tackle racialized school discipline, the disruptions caused by the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racial unrest required situated adaptations in response to the constantly shifting local sociocultural and political contexts. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article examines how Indigenous youth, families, and educators as well as non-Indigenous professionals engaged in collective speculative future-making during the implementation of transformative solutions by navigating uncertainties and political tensions induced by the dual pandemic in order to restructure the present oppressive learning environment, with the political goal of disrupting the settler-colonial punitive school system. To understand the role of future-forward speculations in transforming a punitive school system within the complex, politicized settler-colonial context, we utilize three dimensions of speculation—historical, sociocultural, and sociopolitical—as our guiding theoretical framework. Research Design: To examine collective speculative future-making led by a rural high school community, this instrumental case study employs an abductive approach to analyze video-recorded implementation team meetings, individual or focus group interviews, field notes, and artifacts collected throughout the 2021–2022 academic year. During this period, the school community began implementing the new behavioral support system designed by local stakeholders (e.g., Indigenous students, educators, families, and community members) through the Learning Lab process to address racialized school discipline. Conclusions/Recommendations: The Northwoods High School community engaged in collective speculative future-making to dismantle the oppressive, settler-colonial school system. Through historical, sociocultural, and sociopolitical speculations, the school community critically interrogated often-taken-for-granted present systems, policies, tools, practices, and identities and collectively reimagined possible futures by developing alternative and liberatory stories and sociopolitical relations. By participating in a collective struggle toward possible futures, the local school community can engage in speculative dreaming to refine and consolidate a new school system centered on joy, dignity, and prosperity for students from nondominant communities.

Просветительская работа по усилению кооперации на селе в Центральном Нечерноземье (1921–1925 годы)

This article examines the effect of mass agitation on the organization of agricultural production in general, and rural cooperation in particular, during the transition to the New Economic Policy of the Soviet state. The object of the study is the socio-political relations that were established in the course of the development of rural cooperation in a number of central regions of Russia. The subject of the research is the organizational and regulatory decisions of Soviet party and public bodies aimed to facilitate the production activities of both individual peasant farms and grassroot structures of agricultural partnerships, artels and communes. The purpose of the article is to identify the specific features of the processes that took place, fill the gaps in the historical coverage of this issue and determine the forms in which this work was carried out. In particular, it analyses the methods and nature of the impact on the population aimed to eliminate illiteracy and organize political and agricultural education as well as cooperative agitation and propaganda. The paper focuses on such a form of cooperative propaganda as agricultural exhibitions. The study is relevant due to the increasing scientific and practical interest in the experience of reviving rural Russia after the Civil War. The novelty of the research consists in the extensive use of previously unpublished archival documents and poorly studied sources. The results and conclusions indicate that cooperative agrarian agitation and propaganda in 1921–1925 played a positive role in establishing and strengthening cooperation in rural areas. However, in practice it was often far from the real interests of the peasant masses. Studying the experience of reviving cooperative processes in rural areas in the context of toughening international sanctions can be of great scientific and practical importance. The combination of mass propaganda and actual material and financial support can become an effective argument for the population to stay in rural areas as well as for developing production forms of cooperation.

Large Cemeteries as Materialised Socio-political Relations

Large Cemeteries as Materialised Socio-political Relations

Иджтихад и таклид в деятельности дагестанских реформаторов первой трети XX в. – мнения «за» и «против»

The discussions about Ijtihad and taklid in Dagestan were not abstract in nature: the Ijtihad instru-ment remained relevant throughout the history of Islamic lawmaking. The discussions were con-ducted with varying degrees of intensity during several historical epochs: the pre-colonial, colonial and early Soviet periods and continued, after some interruption, in connection with the processes of re-Islamization in the 90s of the 20th century. The issues of theory were closely related to the practi-cal application of the norms of Islamic law. Emerging challenges in the sphere of socio-political rela-tions required the solution of new issues in Muslim normative practices. All discussions of taklid and Ijtihad in Dagestan were based, first of all, not on the opposition of the two methods, but rather were focused on the permissibility of different levels of Ijtihad within the Shafi'i legal tradition. For Dagestani reformers, Ijtihad served as a means of adapting the Shafi'i legal system to the Russian reality in the late imperial and early Soviet periods.

Об историко-цивилизационной и культурной роли философии в современном мире: Россия и Европа

When considering the relationship of history and cultural and civilizational processes with philosophy, a typology of two types of philosophy is proposed. More precisely, there are two types of philosophy of justice – “equivalence” and “qualification”. The first, unfortunately, is the most common in politics, especially European, Euro-Atlantic or rather Western, is one of the most significant causes of crises and wars, both in history and in modern times. It is the equivalence that, in fact, is synonymous with blood feud (talion), in which retribution becomes equivalent to a crime. In this case, each of the conflicting parties acts as a subject of law and considers itself an injured party. At the same time, one of the parties (as can be seen from the example of Europe when studying its history, especially the last 500 years of colonial history) considers itself to be the only source of rulemaking in the contractual coordinate system. Which in fact leads, without any exceptions, in the history and, most importantly, in the present, to the multiplication of conflicts and the rejection of peace negotiations in principle. Both the past and the present of the political, historical, civilizational, and cultural development of mankind testify to this. This is the philosophy of political solipsism. The qualification, or as it is called in Roman law – “humane justice in favor of freedom”, is more appropriate, as the experience of history in general and the historical development of Russia, in particular, with its multinational composition of statehood, which has preserved about 190 nations and nationalities during its centuries-old development, proceeds from the fact that the norm is not relative and it is not conventional, but has apodictic characteristic and it involves a long process of public-legal coordination of representative databases in the form of various socio-political relations (including conflict ones) in their correlation with the interests of conflicting subjects. And norms, the recognition of the universality and necessity of which on the part of the contracting parties is an indispensable condition for overcoming any crisis. This is the philosophy of political symphonism and synergy. When comparing the relationship between philosophy and history, philosophy and culture, it should be born in mind that it (philosophy) primarily carries the educational function, and at the same time the function of strategic planning, but not a predictive function. Otherwise, we get what can be called “parallel” or, as they say now, “block thinking”, unable to distinguish in the long term, medium-term, and even in the short term, the true and false types of progress, with all their consequences in the history of cultures and civilizations. Or what could be recognized as political solipsism, incapable of any interaction of cultures and negotiation processes in domestic affairs and international relations.

POKAZATELJI STATUSA BOSANSKOG JEZIKA NA KOSOVU NA OSNOVU DOKUMENATA IZ OSMANSKOG ARHIVA U ISTANBULU

The middle of the 19th and early 20th centuries, in the context of exa-mining the socio-political relations in the Balkans, were characterized by the succession of various administrative and political bodies, primarily evident in the diminishing influence of the Ottoman Empire, particularly concerning the Bosnian region under Ottoman rule. However, it was precisely during the mid-19th century that the Kosovo Vilayet was established, where even after the establishment of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia, remnants of the state of affairs that prevailed under Ottoman administration in the Bosnian Vilayet could be observed in social relations. Besides the fact that the Bosnian Vilayet encompassed parts of the Kosovo territory, affording the Bosnian language a positive status in Kosovo at that time, indicators of the favorable social status of the Bosnian language can also be traced within the Kosovo Vilayet. In this regard, the paper will highlight several documents from the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul related to the territory of the Kosovo Vilayet, corroborating the thesis that the Ottoman administration played a crucial role in maintaining the social status of the Bosnian language.Keywords: Kosovo, Kosovo Vilayet, Bosnian Vilayet, Bosnian langua-ge, social relations, Ottoman archival documentsPokazatelji statusa bosanskog jezika na Kosovu na osnovu dokumenata...

The Power of Convening: Towards an Understanding of Artist-Led Collective Practice as a Convener of Place

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in artist-led collectives with high-profile recognition within contemporary art mega festivals, prizes, and biennials. Yet, these amorphous entities and initiatives tend to be framed either through their politically motivated actions or as a critique of the notion of the single author or ‘artist-as-genius’ mythology. This article builds upon this discourse to shift the emphasis onto both interpersonal and socio-political relationships that constitute artist-led collectives in order to explore their complex role in convening and placemaking and what this might mean for both policymaking and research.

Empowering new survivors with old lessons? Insights from the Bosnian war aftermath applied to upcoming Ukrainian post-realities

ABSTRACT In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, media narratives drew stark parallels with the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, instigating discussions on historical similarities and current sociopolitical relations. This paper explores the responses of Bosnian war rape survivors and activists to the gender-based violence during the invasion and draws insights or potential lessons learned for application in Ukraine. As survivors and activists advocate for documentation and warn of the prolonged journey to justice, they navigate triggering narratives reminiscent of Bosnia’s past. Utilizing qualitative content analysis of English and Bosnian-Croatian-Serb language media articles from March to December 2022, the study identifies recurring themes and patterns, referencing the Bosnian conflict as a point of comparison. Using “post” as a temporal and analytical framework, the focus narrows to trauma narratives, the dynamics of breaking the silence, and the distinctive feature of mass digitization in the Ukrainian context. The empowerment of survivors through digital platforms is explored, shedding light on the evolving nature of information dissemination. The paper aims to provide a foundation for understanding the challenges and opportunities for post-conflict recovery and gender trauma healing in the Ukrainian context, based on social factors rather than clinical ones.

Building Response-able Abstractions with Gullah/Geechee Nation

In this article, I think with a decade-long, ongoing collaboration with the Gullah/Geechee Sustainability Think Tank to consider whether and how we can build abstractions in a scholarly way that resource Gullah/Geechee self-determination. Building on Haraway’s concept of “response-ability” I propose the concept of “response-able abstractions” as an approach to scholarly knowledge for transformative social change. I sketch out the concept of “Long Reconstruction” as an example of a response-able abstraction that can bring into relief the sociopolitical relations and space–times of environmental governance in Gullah/Geechee Nation, and as a way of producing scholarly forms of knowledge that resource Gullah/Geechee self-determination.

Понятие «правда» в трудах российских юристов XIX в.

Through the category “truth” there is an integration into the Russian language of borrowed legal concepts, in particular, the concepts of law. An analysis of various interpretations of the content of the concept of “truth” at the beginning, in the first quarter and the second half of the 19th century shows the dynamics of socio-political relations and the development of public consciousness, including the development of legal thought. The concept of “truth” in a theoretical way is used to reveal the essence of law, in practical terms it serves as a means of limiting power in the interpretation and use of law for political purposes.

Transboundary hazard and downstream impact of glacial lakes in Hindu-Kush Karakoram Himalayas

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) can generate catastrophic flash floods when the damming structure is breached or overtopped. Some of these glacial lakes are located in transboundary regions where floods originating from the lake in one country could inundate a neighboring country, devastating the population and infrastructure of both nations and influencing socio-political relationships. Therefore, assessing the lakes' hazard is crucial. This study investigates transboundary glacial lakes, considering their GLOF hazard, including potential mass movement intrusion, moraine's stability, upstream and downstream process cascades, downstream flood extents, and the exposure and vulnerability of the downstream infrastructure and affected population. GLOF exposure assessments were carried out to identify exposed buildings, bridges, and hydropower systems in transboundary regions. China currently has the highest number of transboundary lakes, with most of them potentially impacting India and Nepal. Most of the transboundary lakes in China, and many in India and Nepal, are susceptible to mass movements. Among the 230 transboundary glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush Karakoram Himalaya, 55 lakes can potentially impact other glacial lakes along their flow path, creating a cascade of events. Five transboundary lakes could potentially impact over 1000 buildings, and 16 lakes could impact over 500 buildings. A total of 35 lakes can impact at least one hydropower station along their flow path, and 4 lakes can impact two hydropower stations. This research emphasizes the critical importance of conducting comprehensive risk analyses of GLOFs in transboundary regions to inform policy-makers. It calls for investing in broad-scale assessments and data-driven decision-making for mitigating and adapting to GLOF risks effectively. Finally, by raising awareness among policy-makers, the study aims to drive actions that safeguard communities and infrastructure vulnerable to GLOF.

‘We’re going north’: Motion and Destination in Elizabeth Bowen’s To the North

This paper examines Elizabeth Bowen’s textual development of the ‘north’ in her 1935 novel To the North. I begin by delineating the historical, cultural and literary perceptions of ‘northerness’ in Western imagination to highlight the meanings implicated in Bowen’s use of the north as a metaphor for movement. I demonstrate how ‘north’ for Bowen has personal, individual and domestic implications, considering its entanglement with the context of British and Irish socio-political relations in the early twentieth century. In this view, it remains crucial to consider the importance of these ideas for Bowen’s writing at large, even in novels divorced from the Irish and Anglo-Irish contexts. Finally, I address Bowen’s offer of the north as a constantly receding horizon by which the novel’s titular car-ride ‘to the north’ remains open-ended and undefined. Specifically, I read Cecilia’s and Emmeline’s journeys as examples of how Bowen’s characters negotiate between a condition of stillness and a state of perpetual motion by affirming Bowen’s mobilisation of narrative registers that depict an uncharted and deathly ‘north’ as a physical and figurative site towards which the entire novel must move.

Sport and Nationalism in Celebrations of Mega Events. Dancing victory with Zorba the Greek

The present paper explores the negotiation of national identity in contemporary mega sporting events. The study focuses on certain performances of Greekness through Zorba’s dance in national sporting victories, especially in basketball. The attention shifts onto wider nationalisation processes by highlighting the socio-political relations of sport. The fieldwork took place in the broader area of Athens (Attica) and Patras (Peloponnese), between September 2020 and September 2022. It was based on Visual Anthropology methods, working with interlocutors who are engaged with sports in various ways. Through endearing habits, athletes and fans can constitute different embodied performances inside and outside the stadiums, where sport as a performative place of collectivity and solidarity invites a continuous embodied creative action highlighting how complex, versatile, and political it can be.

The Nehanda mythology: Dialectics of gender, history and religion in Zimbabwean literature

Recently, the government of Zimbabwe unveiled a newly constructed statue of the esteemed spirit medium and liberation icon who intrepidly fought against the British imperialism. The distinguished heroine is passionately known as Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana. The lexical item, ‘Mbuya’ in Shona language literally means grandmother. This study examines the ways in which the spectres of religion, historiography, gender and national politics find expression in often contested state narratives of Mbuya Nehanda and in selected Zimbabwean fictional writings. Foucault’s theorisation of socio-political practices and subjectification as sites of power, together with the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework and bell hooks’ feminist thought of ‘talking back’, provide provocative insights about regimes of power that could be more edifying in the interlocking discursive terrain of the African cosmology, frequently disputed archeology of historical memory, socio-political relations, which are noticeable in discourses and gender politics. The study interrogates whether the Nehanda grand narrative is told by politicians as the revolutionary story of all citizens or not. If not, what alternative versions are proffered in selected Yvonne Vera and NoViolet Bulawayo’s literary texts? Arguably, the mythology of Nehanda in the chosen literary texts locates women as agents of revolution thereby generating semantic dissonance in the Zimbabwean context, which is largely considered as land of the Fathers.Contribution: The study situates the Nehanda narrative within contested terrains of national history, gender and religion in Zimbabwe’s transitional politics and literature. It concludes that in Vera and Bulawayo’s writings, the Nehanda narrative is deployed to interject significations of woman (hood) and nation (hood) which seek to marginalise some sections of the society. The dissonances embedded in the Nehanda narrative produce a dialoguing space that’ talks back’ and rebuts single storytelling.

Art Practices in Modern Culture

The purpose of the article is to analyse modern creative practices in interaction with cultural values. The research methodology includes scientific methods: analytical, structural-functional, generalising; comparative analysis techniques to reveal the specifics of modern creative practices from the perspective of the formation of cultural values. The scientific novelty of the work is based on the analysis of modern artistic practices. Conclusions. It is noted that creative practices influence the educational process with the preservation, reproduction, and formation of cultural values. Artistic practices are a complex communicative process, a connection between a person’s worldview and the environment, means of expressiveness of the arts and everyday life and customs. The versatility of modern creativity is noted with the involvement of synthesised projects, which have more opportunities to attract recipients. The complexity in the relationships between personality education and the formation of cultural values is noted. It is supported by the facts of a change in ideals in modern creativity, reaching the dialectical level of the art of negation, art showing different sides of human existence. Project of the Czech National Ballet with the organisation «Consent» – the ballet “A Streetcar Named Desires” with the problem of violence, changing approaches to education according to the dominance of ethical norms and values of certain groups of youth: respect for oneself, the world around us, loved ones, partners and friends; treating another person as oneself. Ballet by D. Neumeier based on the psychological drama by W. Tennessee “A Streetcar Named Desire” as an example of modern creativity in understanding violence and trauma from it. The modern discourse of art about norms and rules, socio-political relations and cultural values is examined using the examples of the original sculpture by D. Czerny “ Sycophancy” (2003, Prague); artistic project of the Italian theatre troupe “Malatheatre” on the occasion of the celebration of the 452nd anniversary of the birth of the Italian artist Caravaggio in the Church of San Michele Arcangelo. All examples are paralleled by memory studies by psychologists: J. Miller, J. Santa, C. Jung. It is noted that art practices help young people understand cultural values with the accents of the present. Keywords: artistic practices in modern culture, cultural values, art history, musicology, baroque music, ballet, psychology of perception.

Канонический и церковно-административный аспекты спора о прерогативах митрополитов Никеи и Никомидии на Халкидонском соборе

Introduction. On October 30, 451, during the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon, the dispute between Metropolitan Eunomius of Nicomedia and Metropolitan Anastasius of Nicaea was considered. Eunomius believed that his rights as the metropolitan of the entire province of Bithynia, in regard to ordinations, were violated by Anastasius of Nicaea, who had deposed a number of clerics of the city of Vasilinopolis. Information about this lawsuit is taken from the published acts of the 14th session of the Chalcedon Council. Methods. The work is based on the application of the historical-critical method of data processing of the source text used in the original in Greek according to the standard critical edition and quoted by the author in his own translation. Analysis. Based on the analysis of the act material, the author restores the course, content and internal logic of the conciliar audition of the claim of Eunomius of Nicomedia. It also reveals the cause of the claim, external factors and figures that had influenced the course of the case and become the cause of its occurrence. The factors include the unsettled status of the Metropolitan of Nicaea within the province of Bithynia, the limits of his competence and jurisdiction. Similar factor is the unsettled status of the Metropolitan of Nicomedia as bishop of the provincial capital (metropolis), that lead to a conflict of jurisdictions over the Bithynian city of Vasilinopolis. Decisive is also the influence in Bithynia of the patriarchal see of Constantinople and persons who occupied it, beginning with John Chrysostos. The decision of the Ecumenical Council on this lawsuit turns out to be half-hearted: the city of Vasilinopolis and its clergy are recognized as belonging to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Nicomedia, declared the first Metropolitan of Bithynia, but the question of the subordination of the Metropolitan of Nicaea, recognized as the second, remains open. This is evident from later sources, in which the Metropolitan of Nicaea is designated as an independent ruling metropolitan within the province of Bithynia, with his own district and jurisdiction. Results. The decision of the Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon failed to approve in Bithynia the canonical definition of the Council of Nicaea that there should be only one ruling metropolitan in the province. It is obvious that the decision of the judges was influenced by the ancient tradition of intercity rivalry between Nicaea and Nicomedia, dating back to pre-Christian times. The latter was clearly manifested in the fact that the main argument of the litigants was the recognition of the secular title of metropolis for both cities, confirmed by imperial letters. Thus, the dispute between Nicaea and Nicomedia shows that the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils were embodied in church-political and church-administrative practice in so far as they corresponded, or at least did not contradict the established tradition of socio-political relations.

Factual importance and self-significance of ideals in the cultural identification of European countries

The research relevance is determined by the active growth of cultural exchanges in the context of globalisation, as well as the multifaceted phenomenon of European culture, which is often perceived differently within the continent and beyond. In this regard, scholars and artists are faced with the task of correcting the situation using a variety of methods. The study aims to prove the global role of values in the identification of European society based on the analysis of Ukrainian and international experience. The main research methods were ideographic and nomothetic methods of cultural studies, as well as methods of synthesis, abstraction, and generalisation. The examples of Norway, Finland, San Marino, Greece, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Ukraine, Switzerland, and Slovakia are used to study the promotion of national values with the support of the government to form a national identity. Values are seen as the key to preserving and deepening this identity and developing popular art forms in different geographical and ethnic regions of Europe. A parallel is drawn between economic development and the level of national identity, which leads to the conclusion that there is a directly proportional relationship between the two values. The practical significance of the study is the differentiation of the European cultural space and the study of the consequences of its impact on modern society and socio-political relations, which can be applied in the educational and political spheres, as well as benefit business leaders and employers

Arap Şairlerin Osmanlı Hükümdarlarına Övgü Şiirleri

This study aims to examine the rich tradition of panegyric odes composed by Arab poets in honor of Ottoman sovereigns, highlighting the historical, cultural, and political context that gave rise to this distinctive form of literary expression. The paper seeks to explore the reciprocal relationship between Arab poets and the Ottoman Empire, shedding light on how these poets paid tribute to the imperial majesty, conveyed the sultans’ might, and helped to legitimize their rule. By focusing on a diverse range of panegyric odes from the later periods of the Ottoman Empire, the research encompasses the evolving dynamics of power, patronage, and poetic expression that underpinned this unique interaction between Arab poets and the Ottoman court. The primary purpose of the study is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the thematic and stylistic features of these panegyric odes, elucidating the creative strategies employed by Arab poets to extol the virtues of the Ottoman sultans and to articulate their own political, social, and religious allegiances. The paper utilizes historical, literary, and textual analysis, to examine panegyric poetry’s role in fostering cultural exchange and diplomatic communication between the Arab and Ottoman worlds, and its function in bolstering imperial ideology and projecting the Ottoman state’s image. This paper further delves into the critical intersections of politics, religion, and artistic expression within these odes, illuminating how the poets navigated these spheres to construct a nuanced portrait of Ottoman rule. By interpreting the subtexts, allegories, and metaphors employed within these poems, the research uncovers the profound philosophical, spiritual, and cultural paradigms that underscored the political landscapes of the time. Through this lens, the panegyric odes emerge as invaluable literary artifacts that bear testimony to the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire and the intricate socio-political relationships that existed between the Arab poets and the Ottoman court.

Our Spiritual Relations: Challenging Settler Colonial Possessiveness of Indigenous Spirituality/Religion

Indigenous spirituality is often appropriated and deployed in support of white settler values that possess and dispossess Indigenous knowledges, materiality, and socio-political relations. As Kim TallBear explains, this settler property regime maintains a colonial exceptionalism that justifies settler naturalization to Indigenous territories. Indigenous spirituality/religion represents situated knowledges and socio-political relations that cannot be abstracted from collective and co-constitutive relations. LeBlanc and Gareau turn to their respective communities to articulate how relations are central to understanding Indigenous spirituality/religion. LeBlanc employs Savage (Tracy) Bear’s eroticanalysis to see Mi’kmaq women’s spiritual/religious relations in the settler archives as well as situate herself in these relations through photographic self-portraiture. Gareau unpacks the spiritual/religious relations of the Métis fiddle in Maria Campbell’s Road Allowance story of “La Beau Sha Shoo” where a Métis fiddler dies and goes to heaven to drink and visit with Jesus. Throughout, spirituality/religion represents the self- determination of separate but related collective and co-constitutive nations/ peoples.

Особенности социального положения русских националистов (на материале публикаций представителей общественных объединений русских националистов)

The aim of the study of this article is to determine the social status and environment of Russian nationalists. The study is based on the relationship of social reality and ideology. The latter is not only a cover for or justification by certain social groups of their momentary interests (private ideology), but also a reflection of the social position that they occupy (total ideology). As a research method used a classical analysis of documents. The analysis was primarily carried out by publications of leaders of public associations, which, as it seems, are a marker of groups occupying counter-elite social and political positions. The social status and environment of representatives of Russian nationalist associations in the Russian Federation is determined. In particular, it was found that the only significant resource for nationalists is ideological, which they seek to convert into electoral support. In addition to the indicated, apparently, they have at their disposal a certain amount of educational and qualification resource. The economic resource available to Russian nationalists allows us not to think about “daily bread,” but it makes it possible to use it to increase our social status. It seems that nationalism is the lot of relatively closed social groups, mainly residents of large cities. Free ideological niche formed after the collapse of the USSR; loss of previous social status; the system of economic and socio-political relations of modern Russia, which provides little chance for those who intend to carry out an upward social movement other than by seizing political power, have become the reasons for the choice of the ideology of nationalism by the indicated social groups.