While there is a substantive amount of literature on vulnerability of different kinds of patients in different settings, medical professionals are usually considered as the ones who possess power and gain a privileged position. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that in a certain context physicians—a social group which is usually referred to as “powerful”—consider themselves vulnerable, and this positioning may influence patients in turn. This perspective highlights the complexity of interactions within medical organizations and contributes to the studies of sensitive topics and vulnerable groups. We conceptualize vulnerability of doctors and discuss what can be problematic in powerful doctors’ position. We describe some features of the post-Soviet context of Russian healthcare system and maternity care, both of which can be conceptualized as a hybrid of legacy of Soviet paternalism and new neoliberal reforms, managerialism and marketization. Empirical research is based on the ethnographic evidence from the study of a Russian perinatal center. In this article, we explore specific “existential” and “moral” vulnerabilities of medical professionals who routinely have to cope with multiple challenges, such as complicated clinical tasks, rigid control of different state bodies and emotional responses of suffering patients. We argue that there is a bond between the vulnerability of doctors and that of patients, whose position becomes more problematic as professionals become more vulnerable. At the end, we discuss methodological and theoretical implications of our research.

This article explores emotional styles of Russian maternity hospitals and their recent changes. We focus on two emotional practices that characterise different emotional styles: the Soviet-associated emotional practice of khamstvo (rudeness) and the post-Soviet neoliberal practice of smiling. Emotional styles in healthcare in Russia have been transformed under childbearing women’s consumer demands and new professional standards. However, maternity care in Russia has not been changed entirely into a neoliberal capitalist one. It is ruled by both bureaucratic paternalist (including direct state control) and consumerist logics simultaneously. The hybridisation of these logics has led to numerous problems in the coordination of institutional inconsistencies, which in turn cause emotional dissatisfaction of healthcare recipients. Doctors and midwives are expected to cope with these interactional and institutional challenges and consequences. They juggle emotional practices that refer to repertoires of different emotional styles, performing one or another according to their reading of the situation and type of patient (‘extra demanding and aggressive’, ‘miserable’, ‘ignorant and noncompliant’, ‘service-oriented’). We argue that the shift from one emotional style to another is nonlinear and leads to the appearance of a hybrid form that makes both emotional practices of khamstvo and smiling coexist in maternity care.

Ways of conceptualizing the authenticity of (sub)cultures have been changing over time. (Sub)cultural authenticity/identity had long been understood as radical stylistic exclusivity: mohawks and leather jackets were emblematic of belonging to a certain (sub) culture. As the Internet and market developed, (sub)cultural images became publicly available for investigation and copying, which in turn exacerbated the questions of distinguishing between “genuine” representatives of (sub)cultures and posers, copies, wannabes. Certain (sub)cultures have paid a price for such mainstream attention: cooptation of protest, commercialization of music and style, moral panics in the media, persecution by authorities, constant rotation of new participants. In order to survive some (sub)cultures (such as punks) had to simulate their “death”, while others (goths, emos) were on the brink of extinction, but still attempting to reanimate their culture after the intervention of mainstream. The paper explores the ways of (re) production of authenticity in youth (sub)cultures/solidarities/scenes. The empirical bases of the research are two ethnographic case-studies: anarchistic solidarity and dark scene. Both case-studies were conducted using qualitative methodology (in-depth interviews, participant observations) in St Petersburg. Through the prism of narratives of young people identifying themselves with anarchists, punks, goths, neformaly or antifascists the author examines what it means to be authentic (where lies the boundary between “true” participants and “posers”) and how external factors (such as Internet and market) influence transformations inside youth (sub) cultures.

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