CULTURAL AND SYMBOLIC PRODUCTION
Downfall of Post-Soviet Sociology in an International
Context: a Comparative Study of the Institutional Background
(2008-2009)
The fall of the Iron Curtain and subsequent
manifold appearance of different schools and research institutions and, therefore,
thousands of graduates and hundreds of qualified specialists have not had any noticeable
effect on the position of Russian sociology in the world arena. Actually, many sources
(publications in reputable editions, affiliations with associations and editorial boards, etc.)
ascertain a recession as compared with the period of 1990-1995s. Based on the method of
macrocausal analysis (Skocpol), the project studies the institutional background of this
failure. Comparison with other academic subjects in the social sciences (economy, history,
political science) and with other postsocialist countries, where sociology has been
developing more successfully (Poland, Hungary) is used for verification of some hypotheses
put forward in the course of the preceding research. The research entails the use of a
variety of primary sources (statistic analysis of documents, citation database analysis, etc.)
and secondary data.
Researcher: Mikhail
Sokolov.
Supported by the
Science Foundation at the Higher School of Economics (Moscow).
Cultural Heritage and the Politics of Memory in
Contemporary Russia
(2007-2008)
Based on the analysis of publications in the
mass media and the Internet, expert and biographical interviews, and observation of the
city space, the researcher studies the politics of memory in Russian cities; the project
explores the strategies of reevaluation and of popularization of the past. The
methodological approach of this project lies in the crossroads of the sociology of memory,
sociology of space, and cultural studies. It develops the ideas of Maurice Halbwachs on the
socio-structural potential of memory, and the questioning of Pierre Nora on how and why
some historical events and historical facts become important for national history and for
collective memory. The novelty of the project is in including the aspect of space in social
memory studies.
Researcher: Sofia Tchouikina.
Supported by the American
Council of Learned Societies.
The Objects of Cultural Heritage as Participants of the
Urban Politics in Russia and in Europe
(2006-2007)
The project studies the role of the common
things in the urban transformation basing on the estranged observation in the urban space
and the analysis of the press. The starting point of this research was the secondary analysis
of the sociological publications concerning the rapidly changing European cities and towns.
After that a pilot research was implemented in three Russian towns (Petersburg, Kazan,
Cherepovets). In these towns the particular situations were studied, when sculptural or
architectural monument, building, square or park became a "common thing" in a sense
that it created around itself a public space and a discussion space between the municipality,
businessmen, artists, cultural managers and ordinary citizens.
Researcher: Sofia Tchouikina.
Supported by the
Research centre "Res Publica" at the European University at St. Petersburg and the Dynasty Foundation
(Moscow).
The Russian Virtual Diary Community
(2005-2006)
Joint project with the School of Psychology of the Saint-
Petersburg State University.
Coordinators: Elena Sidorenko and Vladimir Volokhonsky (School of Psychology of
the Saint-Petersburg State University).
The research examines the practices of the LiveJournal community. The aims of the research project are to
describe diverse styles of writing down one's life and communications between the journals'
authors. Motives and strategies of diary composing are analysed as well as their anchor in
their authors' lifestyles. Diverse methods are applied including the analysis of documents,
content-analysis and different strategies of electronic network analysis.
Participants from CISR: Mikhail Sokolov,
Tatiana Safonova.
Supported by the Russian
Foundation for Humanities.
"The 60th Anniversary of the Great Victory": The Case of
Narva
(2005-2006)
The project studies the construction of
collective memory about the World War II in Narva and is based on participant observation
of the 60th anniversary celebrations in Narva, expert interviews, textual analysis. The study
is initiated in the framework of the project "The Cultural Politics of Memory in the
Estonian-Russian Borderlands" (2003-2006).
Researcher: Elena Nikiforova.
Initiative project.
Sociology in St. Petersburg after 1991: Institutional and
Intellectual Dynamics of the Local Discipline's Community
(2002-2007)
The project explores the local academic
community of Petersburg sociologists. A wide range of research methods is used, including
participant observation, non-formalised interviewing, questioning, and different
quantitative history methods. The project aimed to investigate the relationships among
institutional organization of the discipline, the broader social context of its functioning, and
supply-and-demand fluctuations in the market of theoretical patterns and
methodologies.
Researcher: Mikhail Sokolov.
Initiative project.