After Utopia: Leftist imaginaries and activist politics in the postsocialist world

Abstract

In this introduction to special issue 'After Utopia: Leftist Imaginaries and Activist Politics in the Postsocialist World', we explore the theoretical implications for thinking about activism as a form of historically situated practice in the former socialist world. Building on insights from the papers included in this issue, which draw on ethnographic research in Ukraine, Armenia, Bosnia and along the Balkan refugee route, our introduction considers both the fragility and resilience of leftist imaginaries in the aftermath of lost utopian dreams of socialism and the betrayed promises of post 1989 democratic transformation. We do so in four moves, (i) by offering a reframing of postsocialism as a problem-space of historical and political consciousness; (ii) by interrogating the figure of the activist in its self-conscious and ethnographically embedded guises; (iii) by heeding Sherry Ortner's call to think beyond 'dark anthropology' and finally, (iv) by considering what it might mean to imagine, and model, political alternatives in both activist and scholarly work.

Toward a comparative anthropology of activism: activist identity formations in Germany and Uganda

“…While insightful analyses of these different kinds of activism are plentiful, surprisingly little has been written about the relationship they have to each other. Anthropological studies of activism have revealed how activists draw on historical memories and political imaginaries in order to form their identity (see Narotzky 2014;Kurtovic and Sargsyan 2019). Connecting to these insights, we content that investigating the process of activist identity formation particularly in relation to other kinds of activism is an important project for the anthropology of activism.…”

From the streets to the town halls: Municipalist platforms in the post-Yugoslav space

“…The second factor accounting for the choice of new municipalism as ideological positioning is its resonance with the socialist self-management heritage. Since the 2010s, in the post-Yugoslav movement sphere there has been an attempt to revive and retrieve the historical experience of socialism (Kurtović and Sargsyan, 2019). In spite of the contested heritage of the socialist period, in the last decade the debate around ‘the unrealized potentials of Yugoslav socialism’ (Kurtović, 2019: 20) has thrived amongst intellectual circles in the area (Milan, 2021), influencing and informing the vision of the activists who created the platforms.…”

“…By means of these proposals, both platforms outline a roadmap that does not require a radical institutional reform since these bodies are already in place. By ‘approaching postsocialism as an intersectional experience and geopolitically sensitive form of knowledge’ (Kurtović and Sargsyan, 2019: 2), the originators of platforms in the post-Yugoslav space rethink socialism as an emancipatory experience to draw inspiration from. This position is in line with a general revival of the socialist experience in the region’s activist scene.…”

Moving in and out of the European cultural space: Southeast European encounters with the Creative Europe programme

“…They objected against the political elites’ use of nationalism for their own personal gain, the corrupt privatisation processes they instigated and the growing dysfunctionality of the political systems (see Arsenijević, 2014: 47; Dragićević-Šešić and Tomka, 2016; Hromadžić and Kurtović, 2017). There was a belief that through culture and art they could enact ‘alternative futures in the aftermath of state socialist projects’ (Kurtović and Sargsyan, 2019: 3). International funders facilitated these actions.…”