The wave of labor unrest that accompanied Belarusian post-election protests had no precedents in the country's independent history or recent post-Soviet political protest mobilizations. These protests challenge the prevalent trend in the current literature on the post-Soviet working class to stress its weakness in terms of organization, as well as structural and material resources. This article relies on a database of workplace-related protest events (August 10–September 30) and a selection of statements, interviews, and social media discussions among participants of the protests, in order to explain this unexpected activation of the seemingly passive Belarusian working class. The author hypothesizes that it was the vagueness of the Belarusian opposition's ideology and workers’ participation in the broader protest movement that helped them overcome the challenges of suppressed voice, bureaucratic despotism, and atomization. These mobilizing factors, however, limit the further development of autonomous labor organizations and their democratizing impact.

The following conversation took place as an online round table organized by the Anthropology of Peace, Conflict, and Security research network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists on 14 March 2023. The aim of the round table was to create a space where Ukrainian anthropologists would reflect collectively on the anthropological approach to the invasion of Ukraine one year on. We asked them: What kinds of debates, narratives, imaginaries, and forms of activism have emerged under the invasion, and how have they shifted with time? How does an anthropological lens complicate some of the debates that have perhaps been posed in too simplistic terms? What is the view “from below” in Ukraine regarding life under the invasion, prospects for peace, solidarity, hope, and resistance? And last, but not least: how can we—anthropologists, non-Ukrainians—support them?

Many places in the post-socialist world undergo emptying: a loss of their constitutive elements—people, infrastructure, services, and futures past. Some people see this emptying as a loss, others as an opportunity. We argue that the shift from loss to opportunity—or vice versa—is a site of the political, that is, a moment of decision about the place of the present in a framework of meaning that gives form and direction to life. Drawing on contributions to the theme section, as well as on literature on hegemony, the political, and Anthropocene, we identify a potential tension between re-politicization on the scale of geopolitics and de- politicization on the scale of the planetary.

The motor sphere of children with autism is characterized by the presence of stereotyped movements, difficulties in the formation of objective actions and household skills, and violations of fine and gross motor skills. The aim of the work was to establish the influence of adaptive training with elements of free-fight on the development of motor skills, sensory profile and quality of life of a child with autism. A 12-year-old boy A. with a diagnosis of childhood autism, social maladaptation (disability subgroup A) was chosen for the experiment. The child does not speak, cannot read or write, has impaired coordination of movements (walking on tiptoes, motor stereotypies, motor disinhibition), insufficient understanding of language. Somatically, the boy is healthy, loves motor activity. An assessment of the child's sensory functioning was carried out according to the Short Sensory Profile method, developed and recognized by The Psychological Corporation (USA), a survey of parents about the child's quality of life before the start of training and after a forced break in training, in addition, an assessment of the quality of direct blows with the hand and foot was carried out punching bags at each session. During the research period, the boy A. performed, under the guidance of a coach, exercises for coordination of movements ("obstacle course"), interaction with the coach (gymnastic exercises, various available games with a ball), exercises for developing the strength of various muscle groups (work with "Bulgarian bag", dumbbells) and special free-fight exercises (hits with hands and feet on punching bags and a dummy). A significant improvement of the child's sensory functioning was established, namely all types of sensitivity, except auditory filtering and sensitivity to taste and smell. The child's parents noted a significant increase in the quality of life of both the boy himself and the entire family. Significant progress was observed in learning the technique and the success of the boy's performance of special free-fight exercises. Adaptive training with elements of free fight served as a significant sensory stimulus for a child with autism, contributed to the learning of motor skills, and improved the quality of life of the family.

This paper analyzes the ideologies accompanying the political crisis that occurred in Belarus between August 2020 and late December 2020. In that year, Belarus saw the largest wave of mass protest mobilization that happened in this country since it proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This protest wave was in many ways exceptional in comparison with other countries in the post-Soviet area. Scholars are still struggling to explain the reasons for this exceptional mobilization, and this paper contributes to this effort by looking at the ideational factors behind the pre- and post-electoral protests in Belarus. According to the central hypothesis of this paper, the 2020 protests were triggered by the breakdown of the protesters’ identification with the image of ‘the people’ as projected by the dominant populist discourse, and the development of the protests was accompanied by a struggle over redefinition of who ‘the people’ are. More broadly, by turning to the discursive theory of populism, this paper assesses an ambiguous democratization potential of populist mobilizations in an authoritarian polity.