Resources and Everyday Conflicts in Rural Ukraine: Theorizing Social Change (Russian and East European Studies) - Softcover

Kaneff, Deema

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822967731 ISBN 13: 9780822967736

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2026

Synopsis

Social change is a topic of central interest in the social sciences. The upheavals and reforms that swept across former socialist states in Eurasia offer a rich array of case studies to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in an ethnically Bulgarian community in rural Ukraine, Deema Kaneff uniquely brings to light a range of hidden conflicts and everyday tensions, as well as new alliances and solidarities resulting from the redistribution of resources following Ukrainian independence. A focus on five key resources provides a means to explore the way in which relationships were contested and renegotiated in this small community, with implications that go far beyond those boundaries.

About this title

About the Author

Deema Kaneff is a reader in social anthropology at the University of Birmingham in the UK and an associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. She is the series editor for the book series Anthropologies of Eurasia: Ethnographic Encounters of Social Change and a member of the editorial board for the book series European Studies in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology. She is the author of Who Owns the Past? The Politics of Time in a “Model” Bulgarian Village, as well as numerous other edited volumes and journal publications.

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Excerpt from the Introduction to Resources and Everyday Conflicts in Rural Ukraine

Resources are at the center of processes of social change. While this is true of any society in any given historical period, it is particularly relevant in the case of postsocialist Eurasia―including Ukraine―where reforms that amounted to nothing less than a radical transformation of social, political and economic life, took place not once, but twice in the last century: with the establishment of socialist states, and then decades later, with their demise and incorporation into the global capitalist economy. At both times, resources were important for anticipating and implementing social change: Centralized ownership and control of resources were crucial to engineering the socialist state; postsocialist reforms reversed many of these public/collective ownership arrangements, although there was no return to pre-Soviet arrangements. On both occasions, it was through the deliberate shifting of resources, through changes in their ownership/control/management and access that social transformation was orchestrated.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822967731
• ISBN 13: 9780822967736
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352