Full Description
What do Russians really want? Do they want authoritarianism and are they prepared to go along with a war of conquest and destruction? Or do they want something else?
A landmark contribution to the field, Morris is the only social researcher to have carried out fieldwork in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, engaging with communities in Moscow, regional cities, as well as rural areas to bring perspectives on Russian everyday lives that are now entirely inaccessible to the West. Everyday Politics in Russia uses the lens of micropolitics, defined not as politics in miniature but instead as taking seriously the political content of people's normal lives revealed in their practices, interactions and discussions. Based on decades-long interactions with people from a diverse cross-section of society in Russia - from security service officers to factory workers, from unemployed young men to citizen journalists and activists, this is the most comprehensive insight to date into the complexity of Russian attitudes toward war, their government and the post-1991 political trajectory.
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
Introduction: Rethinking the Meaning of the Political in Russia
Part I - ABSENT PRESENCES
Chapter 1. War and Society Response: Defensive Consolidation
Chapter 2. Feeling for an Absent Presence: The Roots of Russian Ressentiment
Chapter 3. Absurd Inhabitations: Portraits of Suffering and Striving
PART II: LIINES OF CONTROL
Chapter 4. Capitalist Realism: Russia's Laboratories of Hopelessness?
Chapter 5. Incoherent State: On Co-Producing Governance from Below
PART III: LINES OF FLIGHT
Chapter 6. Nomads: An Intermezzo on Garages and Other Non-Places
Chapter 7. Craft as Politics: From Salvage Economies to Mending the World
Chapter 8. 'This Thing We Do': Wartime Entanglement of People in Politics
Chapter 9. Peopling the Everyday Politics of Post-Socialism
References
Index
