Shortage, fuzzy property and other dead ends in the anthropological analysis of (post)socialism

Abstract

The article begins with the observation that, despite almost ideal conditions, anthropological research on postsocialism has had little impact on general theoretical debates. One reason for this development, it will be argued, can be found in earlier interpretations of socialism that continue to have an effect on the field by obstructing innovative conceptualizations. The appropriation of ideas derived from neo-institutionalism by anthropologists produced analyses that found both socialism and postsocialism to be deficient. Thereby the ambivalent construction of the socialist ‘other’ allowed the general focus on economics to appear unproblematic. Following the introduction of Western institutions into formerly socialist contexts, the analytical focus shifted from old ‘different’ and ‘inefficient’ institutions to now ‘inefficient’ or at least ‘different’ actors. Taking the example of work relations, the article shows that only by overcoming these normative assumptions about the ‘other’ can anthropologists begin to question implicit knowledge and thereby open the possibility for new theorizing.

Quietly does it: Questioning assumptions about class, sustainability and consumption

“…In accordance with transition theory, CEE societies were deemed to be following the path of western societies and hence western theoretical models and concepts were thought to be transferable. As Geciene (2004), Buchowski (2006) and Thelen (2011) have shown, western social science conceptual and analytical tools developed to analyse western societies such as middle class, civil society, social networks and property were often applied to CEE societies in an uncritical and unreflective manner. Various contributions to Hann"s (2002) collection of essays on Postsocialism engage with these limitations, including in the handling by researchers and analysts of concepts of class formation and economic destinies (e.g.…”

Intersections. EEJSP_Vol1_No2

“…I address the positioning games played by the CEE scholars, the modalities in which their various critical agendas became embedded in global fluxes of ideas, and their important role in co-producing the self-Orientalizing narrative on 'socialism' and 'post-socialism'. Following the debate between Thelen (2011; and Dunn & Verdery (2011) over postsocialism as a strategic case, my contention is that epistemic enclavisation of the region spring from those types of global partnerships, which forged critical alliances predicated on attributing history to the West and taking out the East from the 'normal' flow of history. I further develop this point through an example, the understanding of socialist urbanization in the 1980s and 1990s.…”

“…The region seems to continue to emerge as a distinct epistemic oasis. The concepts with the greatest explanatory potential and with the greatest academic coverage (bureaucratic collectivism, mirror comparison, redistribution, shortage economy, dictatorship over needs, the politics of duplicity, informal economy, fuzzy property, recombined property, managerialism) have transformed, arguably, the CEE into a space with its own rules of composition, different, and most of the time incomparable with the rest of the world (Stenning and Hörschelmann, 2008;Pobłocki, 2009;Gille, 2010;Thelen, 2011). In this essay I question the mechanisms and the responsibility for the production of this particular knowledge regime by proposing some twists in the narratives liable for the epistemic provincialization of the region.…”

“…A counter-hegemonic epistemic counter-point can by formulated only by an investigation of our institutional and epistemological alliances, to make Gramscian reformulations and tactical shifts against the economic subsumption and metropolitan power games possible. Firstly, I address the issue of the colonial structure of knowledge production in CEE by reexamining a Thelen (2011; and Dunn and Verdery's (2011) key debate over what is socialism and its posts. Secondly, I discuss the CEE 'scholars' agencies in the East-West transactions and some of the critical assumptions underpinning the narrative about socialism.…”

“…In a pivotal debate, Thelen (2011; addresses some of these issues in an effort to capture the colonial underpinnings of 'socialism' and 'post-socialism'. Her thesis is that socialism and successor 'posts' did not escape the narrow parochialism of the metropolitan episteme, as Verdery's (1996;) and Dunn's (2004) hallmark research show.…”