Postcolonialism, postsocialism and the anthropology of east-central Europe

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the issue of postcolonialism and postsocialism from the perspective of the discipline of anthropology. I argue that the recent efforts of anthropologists at bringing postcolonialism and postsocialism into dialogue can help us to develop a fresh conceptual framing of ethnographic problems and can play a positive role in the dismantling of the historically generated and geographically bounded divisions that have determined scholarly approaches to analysing peoples' experiences in different parts of the globe. I insist, however, on what I consider to be a key epistemological divergence between the two concepts. While postcolonialism was born as a project of indigenous epistemological critique of the persistence of colonialism in the postcolonial present with emancipatory/liberatory implications, postsocialism was developed as an analytical tool by western scholars to analyse the former societies of the Communist bloc. This hegemonic epistemology of postsocialism makes it a very different concept from postcolonialism and raises questions concerning its usefulness as an intellectually empowering tool for scholars in challenging local inequities arising from the effects of global capitalism. In order to illustrate this limitation, I review the recent disciplinary debate on the politics of knowledge production between native and western anthropologists of postsocialism.

Tourism in (Post)socialist Eastern Europe

“…There was actually no account 'from the inside', which would reach wider reception (excluding both the belles-lettres and less scientific literature which would 'flow out' outside by means of unofficial channels or which was already written in the West by the immigrants from the Eastern Bloc). Owing to this 'rooting', analyses offered by local researchers constitute an interesting and important counterpoint to the research from the Anglo-Saxon perspective (see : Berdahl & Bunzl, 2010;Bridger & Pine, 2013;Buchowski, 2001;Cervinkova, 2012;Cervinkova, Buchowski, & Uherek, 2015;Galasińska & Galasiński, 2010;Grabher & Stark, 1997;Kürti & Skalnik, 2013;Negro, 2012;Schröder & Vonderau, 2008).…”

Zombie socialism and the rise of neoliberalism in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe

“…After ascending as a denominator of all things post-1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, several scholars in geography, anthropology, and sociology have pointed out that the concept of post-socialism has become less relevant (Boyer and Yurchak 2008;Cervinkova 2012;Chari and Verdery 2009;Dunn and Verdery 2015;Ferenčuhová 2016;Hirt 2013;Horvat and Štiks 2012;Humphrey 2001;Pickles 2010;Rogers 2010;Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008;Tuvikene 2016;Wiest 2012). Against this backdrop, we indicate one location where one may find continued relevance of socialism (and its "post").…”

The Contested Post-Socialist Rehabilitation of the Past: Dual Narratives in the Republishing of Tibor Mendöl’s "Introduction to Geography"

“…Although Fraser concentrates on the possibilities of a new political Left following a crisis of vision after 1989, the general question here is whether this condition designates: 1) an historical epoch with structural explanations of demarcation (for example, the "transition" to a market economy); 2) a state of culture, mind, memory, or behavior that lingers on and surfaces contradictorily through inherited structures; or 3) a critical epistemology employed not only to reflect upon "actually existing socialism," but also to explore the middle ground between often essentialized "capitalist" and "socialist" worlds, and "Western" and "Eastern" concepts (Frank 1991, Verdery 1996, Chari and Verdery 2009, Bockman 2011, Lampland 2011). The rather "closed" and sometimes provincialized concepts of both socialism and postsocialism-often as the Oriental "Other" of the West-should also be treated differentially and relationally (Hann et al 2002, Outhwaite and Ray 2005, Stenning and Hörschelmann 2008, Silova 2010, Cervinkova 2012) and should be contextualized along globally uneven relations and circulations (see Bockman and Eyal 2002, Tulbure 2009, Bockman 2011, Gille 2010, Éber et al 2014). But here I will mainly focus on the second above-mentioned aspect of this "postsocialist condition," and its consequences in narrativity and knowledge production in geography.…”